Things came to a major crunch in July 2004.  It was my brothers wedding in the August and I found myself taking £10 out from one credit card, £20 from another etc, just to get enough money together to buy a wedding present.  My 3 daugthers and a new addition a son, were bridesmaid and pageboy and I couldnt afford to help towards their outfits.  Luckily my mum stepped in although she didnt realise why I couldnt afford to. 

It finally dawned on us the day we returned from my brothers wedding that we could no longer continue the way we were.  We arrived home to some frightening credit card statements and the minimum payments were horrendous.  Until this point, we had never heard of an IVA and all we could think about was my husband could not go bankrupt as he would lose his job.  We found a debt solutions company on line and gave them a ring.  Until this point, we had absolutely no idea how much we owed to the various credit cards and loans and to say we were gobsmacked is a complete understatement.  We owed just over £60,000!  How the heck did we ever get in this mess?  The guy we spoke to was very gentle with us and gave us all the options available but advised us that an IVA would be the best way to proceed.

And this is when our IVA journey began.  A couple of weeks later we were put in touch with our IP company and to us this was it.  We had to do this or risk going bankrupt.  Our creditors meeting was set for 9 December 2004.  We were still in shock as how we had managed to rack up such horrendous debts and to be honest, we could not think of one single thing we had to show for it.  The day loomed and after a very nervous and nail biting wait, I got the phonecall to say my husbands IVA had been approved, subject to modifications.  To be honest I couldnt recall the modifications because as soon as they had said it had been approved, I broke down and agreed to everything.  They were standard ones to do with the 50% uplift and windfalls etc, so I was lucky there wasnt an increase of contributions or anything.  Could have been a lesson learnt the hard way!

I cannot say that being in an IVA was easy, far from it.  We struggled from day 1!  At the time, we didnt have a clue about filling out the income/expenditure forms and it was an extremely strict budget we had set.  We were just desperate to get the IVA approved regardless.  Shopping proved the hardest task.  Some weeks I only had £50 to feed a family of 6 and this included nappies for my son as well as washing powder, toiletries etc.  Just buying nappies etc wiped out a 1/5 of my budget.  It was nigh on impossible but somehow I did it.  I cant say it was a healthy meal we had at times but at least we ate and we had a roof over our heads.  Some people have contingency fund built into their budget, we didnt.  I never had any spare money left over at the end of the month.  What I did have left over meant that for a couple of days we could actually have a shops own branded bread rather than their extra value.  This was the excitment and highlight of the month.  Spending that extra £2 or £3 on “luxury” food.  Crumbs, how things have changed.  Before the IVA I doubt I even looked at the prices of what I was buying.

Our first Christmas was interesting!  We made sure that the children got some presents and we went without.  My husband bought me a pack of wooden pegs and I got him a pack of Asdas Jaffa Cakes but it wasnt an unhappy Christmas, far from it.  It was still full of love and magic for the children and seeing their faces when they found out that Father Christmas had visited was enough to remind us that yes we had made the right decision for the right reasons.

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