Some may remember me from this forum, I went into an IVA just over 2 years ago now, I was fortunate last year to have someone to do a full and final for me, although I'm paying them off and will be for some time.
Anyway I am now officially off the insolvency register although I know my credit rating will be affected for at least 4 more years if not more.
However this is not what my tale is about. In the last 2 years I have learnt to manage my money like I never have in my 46 years. I won't say there haven't been tricky and scary times but I've got through them, sometimes with a little help from my mum but again I'm paying that back too. I have even learnt to save and have had a couple of small very cheap breaks that were all paid for up front, again something I have never done in my whole life up to now.
Last month I applied for one of the high interest credit cards to try to improve my credit rating. I have to say this scared me a lot, my plan was to put petrol and food on it but put that money in my savings account and when the bill for the credit card came in, pay it in full. Guess what, I did just that!
Please let me tell you I have never ever ever paid a credit card in full at the end of the month and not incurred at least some interest even when things were good for me financially.
I'm telling you this as I remember what it was like when I finally realised I needed to enter an IVA, the feeling that I'd failed financially, the feeling that I would never know what it was like to control my finances and here I am, saving, paying off credit cards in full and living an ok life. It's not the life I had living on credit, but that was never real life, this is real life and I feel immensely proud to have come this far.
So if you think you can't do it, you can. I am living proof!!
(I do know btw that I was lucky to have someone offer to do a full and final, and lucky it was accepted, it was situational, I was on a contract at work and didn't know if it would be renewed, and my husband is unable to work due to disability, so the relief of the full and final being accepted when it was, was huge!)
"It is never too late to be what you might have been"
Fiona
