IVA Troubles

boblardo

we are about 6 months in to our IVA and it has been really really hard.

I am not expecting to be easy but the amount of stress this is causing me is unbearable.

We have our budgets but, for example, it is the 5th March 2013 and I have just £70 left in the bank until payday!!!!!!

We haven't been frivelous but this month the children needed some new clothes for school and generally and also new school shoes. this went over our budget

My car insurance needs renewing, paid a deposit but the first installment is due in 3 weeks (not included in the £70)

How do people manage, we try and stick to the budget religiously but something always comes up.

We started the IVA in november, in december we had to pay the car tax which we had to take out of our housekeeping.

Luckily mum is lending me the odd £10 here, £10 there with no expectation to pay it back but Dad is terminally ill so there is a lot of stress at the moment.

Saturday night was my best friends stag do, he knows I have finance problems so organised a cheap night in a local pub, i drove down spent £10 and left early. how guilty do i feel

We have life insurance we can get rid of, contract mobile phones that total £30 per month that can be changed to pay as you go. our virgin is £80 per month, happy to reduce it but its the only luxury we have.

there is nothing left to sell as we did all that in december to help pay for xmas. could sell the car but thats got 9 payments left to go on the finance and need it for work.

kids have hobbies football (£1 each a week) and brownies (£3 a week) totalling £5 a week. we have our shopping down to £50 per week for four people

I have no idea what else to do it just feels like we will never get through this no matter how hard we try.

teacup326

I feel for you, I REALLY do. I'm assuming your IVA is over the 5yr term?? You cannot possibly go on living hand to mouth like that. It's not fair on you, your wife and most certainly not fair on the kids.

Have you spoken to your supervisor ? Maybe they could call a meeting of your creditors and take a look at your I&E. Put it to the supervisor bluntly, your kids are starting to suffer (ie food). No court in this land is going to allow this to happen. If they cant lower your plan, then at least they can extend it to the 6 yr term to ease the monthly repayments.

I dont really know what else to say, but from my experience when I was about half way through my term, I lost my job, was fortunate enough to find another quite soon, but took an £8k pay drop. I spoke to my supervisor, who called a meeting, and my monthly IVA repayment was lowered by £110 PCM, which helped me out massively.

Good luck to you, I wish you all the best, but you must ask for help before things esculate.

SPELLKASTER

I too am on an IVA, but min is for a fixed 6 year period!!

I would speak to your IVA provider and ask if you can take a payment break.

My IVA is through Debt Free Direct, and when I had problems with this months payment, they agreed to lower it as I had a massive vets bill to pay!!

Good luck xx

ekkygirl

Make an appointment to see your supervisor, You must be paying too much on monthly payments to be so skint, go and see about getting it reduced.

boblardo

Thanks for all the reply's

IVA is already a 6 year IVA (Thanks Northern Rock). Currently pay £282 each month, and have about 66 months to go

We get £x for car, £x for clothes etc but we just never save this. I have a large car bill coming up in July (work that was mentioned during last MOT) so need to put something away but haven't managed it yet as something always comes up

I have no idea how to get out of this, its causing huge strains in the family.

teacup326

Then you really do need to speak to the IVA supervisor today. If you take some actions now, then at least if they were able to give you a 2/3 month payment break, it'd give you some breathing space. BUT, I would insist on an extraordinary creditors meeting as you simply cannot afford to live paying £282 PCM, and your proposing a lesser amount. If you have to extend the term, then so be it, this will spiral out of control very quickly so do yourself a favour and call them, if not for you then the kids!

Good luck.

cheesedoffwithdebt

Hi, do speak to your supervisor but I really would consider changing your virgin package and the phones. You can get much cheaper. My mobile cost is now seven pounds a month, it's a fairly basic phone, and I cut down tv channels to reduce my cable package.

cheesedoffwithdebt

boblardo wrote: »

we are about 6 months in to our IVA and it has been really really hard.

I am not expecting to be easy but the amount of stress this is causing me is unbearable.

We have our budgets but, for example, it is the 5th March 2013 and I have just £70 left in the bank until payday!!!!!!

We haven't been frivelous but this month the children needed some new clothes for school and generally and also new school shoes. this went over our budget

My car insurance needs renewing, paid a deposit but the first installment is due in 3 weeks (not included in the £70)

How do people manage, we try and stick to the budget religiously but something always comes up.

We started the IVA in november, in december we had to pay the car tax which we had to take out of our housekeeping.

Luckily mum is lending me the odd £10 here, £10 there with no expectation to pay it back but Dad is terminally ill so there is a lot of stress at the moment.

Saturday night was my best friends stag do, he knows I have finance problems so organised a cheap night in a local pub, i drove down spent £10 and left early. how guilty do i feel

We have life insurance we can get rid of, contract mobile phones that total £30 per month that can be changed to pay as you go. our virgin is £80 per month, happy to reduce it but its the only luxury we have.

there is nothing left to sell as we did all that in december to help pay for xmas. could sell the car but thats got 9 payments left to go on the finance and need it for work.

kids have hobbies football (£1 each a week) and brownies (£3 a week) totalling £5 a week. we have our shopping down to £50 per week for four people

I have no idea what else to do it just feels like we will never get through this no matter how hard we try.

Could I add a few things? I've been thinking about this so might as well get it down on "paper".

The hardest part of living without any access to credit is managing your cashflow- and I for one have to work very hard at checking how much is in the bank etc. Its taken me ages to build up some savings and they are earmarked for car tax and stuff, so I am hardly overflowing with cash!

As I said I know its tough but you have to find ways of cutting down your regular expenses if you are going to survive.

I had an iphone and when the contract ended I got a new one (contract and less dingly dangly phone) with T Mobile who very kindly this year halved the fee as I'd found a better deal at Tesco and was about to leave them.

Initially I cut out Sky TV and got a freeview box with some birthday money- it didn't work well and I got a Virgin package for £5 a month.

I regularly re broke insurances like house and contents, and have had to find ways of food shopping that are more frugal.

So you can approach the IP but could I suggest this?

Explain you have no reserves of money for irregular bills, ask for a one month payment holiday and BANK the normal IVA payment.

Have that account as your "emergency" fund.

Add up all your irregular bills and divide by 12- then each month add to that fund so your larger expenses are covered, and your food money is safe.

Charity shops have to become an option- you need to check those more regularly but kids clothes are marvellous there- often barely worn, and cheaper than the shops.

It's a steep learning curve but it is possible to learn- it unfortunately takes alot of time scouring your budget, and effort to see how you can save.

Freecycle is a good source of items you might need as well-I have a lovely IKEA bookcase which I needed as I work from home, and have had other smaller items along the way as well as giving stuff.

I redesigned my home on the "vintage" model to get away with mismatched crockery and crochet throws- all bought in as they were cheap or free.

I save religiously for things, and work at sticking to my budget which I don't always achieve.

As far as socials-yes its tough but bars do craftily serve tap water, if you are driving you can just say you're not drinking because of.


One of the best books I've read is called something like "How I lived on a pound a day for a year" you might find it really helpful.

There is really only one way of getting through an IVA so as long as the general allowances are ok and not too tight it may be you have to learn about managing your cash more unfortunately and this is no easy thing- for anyone reading this I've been at that place of only having a tiny amount left for food, and have made many glaring errors.

If you feel able could you post your Income and Expenditure up on here? plus the IVA budget?

People who do this often get some helpful suggestions.I appreciate you don't want to hear some of them but sadly 5 years is a long time on a fixed budget so it's a tough ride.

ami66

Cash flow is certainly the hardest thing to deal with when working within a 12 month budget.

We're in month 3 but in month 1 we had to road tax car1, month 2 we had to service car 1 and road tax car 2 then month 3 service and MOT car 2 :eek:

But some how we've scrapped through although the rest of this month is looking 'squeaky' :whistle: hopefully everything should fall ok *fingers crossed*

But I can only say thank god the advisor we had from Payplan told us our initial SOA was unrealistic because we would never have survived on it in hindsight.

Like cheesedoffwithdebt suggested put up your SOA or at least your expenditure allowance as per your IVA agreement and maybe those of us in IVA's can point out where we've been allowed more for similar sized families.

Maybe a new topic is needed to discuss what individuals have been allowed in expenditures to help those looking at IVA's?