Anyone on IVA?

Bobby81

Hello would love hear from people who are on an IVA and can give me some advice. I would be really grateful!!!!!

Bobby81

Sorry forgot to say too, every person i have spoke to on an IVA is always short of money, how can that be if there payments have been reduced so much, have i got it wrong??

iwannabefree

Hi Bobby,

Me and my OH have just recently began an IVA (3 months running now) and thought very much the same. They work out what you owe, what your income/expenditure is, and then they allocate a figure as to what you can realistically pay off. Ours was quite high as well, however it still knocked off a fair old whack of the debt.

We sort of had two light bulb moments if that makes sense. The first was realising we had this problem. Our monthly outgoings were pretty much what we had coming in. That didn't take into account food, and daily living expenses, so we basically lived on the credit cards and i suppose, in denial. Went with an IVA before we knew about this website, so am a little hacked off with ourselves we didn't come here first, hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

The second light bulb moment was when we realised we were still struggling, bank account running on fumes with a week or two before payday. At this point we had heard about this site, and it has been a great help. We are in the process of opening a second bank account just for our DD's, our main account will be for weekly spending. This if i'm led to believe will help considerably as many people on this site will agree and have advised. We have set up a spread sheet that shows all our income, all our DD's, and then we have divided our left over money by 4.2 weeks and now we live week to week. We withdraw the weekly allowance, and what we spend our money on whether it's food, petrol, or even the lottery, we enter this into the spread sheet. You have to be very committed as it is quite easy to leave it for a day or two and get behind and lose track. We also get a receipt for everything and put them in the envelopes we have for each week. And in case we haven't the time to put it on the computer, we have a sheet of paper in the envelope to just jot down what we have spent that day.

So far it seems to be working, and if we have any money left over for that week, it then goes into a spare cash envelope for trips out or other treats.

Good luck in getting sorted

Hope this helps, i'm sure others will give you good tips and advice also.

Baggiebird1nil

My husband and I are 13 months into our IVF. Although we aren't loaded we do have money now to go out once a week and have the occasional takeaway. You do have to send them a SOA yearly and I was dreading them saying that we had got to pay more out but we haven't. WE know that we won't get any phone calls or nasty letters from anyone and we do have a definate Debt Free Date to work to. Personally speaking it was the best thing we ever did and it was all done over the phone. We did all this before I found this site and went through a firm who charge (I think) something like £30 per month from £320 (We were paying out over £500 per month before IVA). If I had found this site earlier I would probably have through CCCS but hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it? Anyway good luck whichever way you decide to play it.

Kate