If its your family they will understand Friends who need them any questions just say you went a bit crazy with your credit cards and decided to cut them up and start to clear them so you can start fresh in a couple of years If you have kids say you are not wasting money on fancy holidays and are putting money aside for there university or something when they are older Say things are too expensive these days and are watching your money and dont want to waste it on going abroad to sit on a beach and want to chill out at home etc Any more nosey comments tell them to keep there noses out You are sorting your life out and doing something positive about ir I told a couple of close friends and am lucky to have a straight talking bloke who is always on my side never makes a comment and I can whinge and moan when I want At the end of the day I got myself into this and I will get myself out its got nothing to do with anybody else. 5 years is nothing just look back 5 years from now and then imagine doing all that again Even if you werent in the IVA and you were able to pay the bank or cards back you would still be paying back for 2 3 5 years so what the differnce really thats how I try to deal with it Break the years into 2 or 3 months dont look ahead further than that then when you get there do the same again and so on Everyday you wale up you are 1 day closer to the end As the saying goes the longest journey starts with the first srep I think its no use getting miserable about this coz whats the point Everybody wants things and cant have them for 1 reason or another Just coz you are in an IVA its not the end of the world I think of it in a positive way a test of strength or I read a great reply that the IVA is your new Money control teacher and you got 5 years detention for going astray Also sure people go off on holidays and go out wow so what who cares They still have to come back and pay it off Basically you are doing the same now So then they are stuck paying a few months back
Keep your chin up and stay strong when you look back you will see what you have done and where you went wrong and had the guts to do something about it and not walk away Surely thats gotta make you feel good
take care and just take each day as it comes There are millions worse off than everybody in here I would guess so stay positive and smile : P
My parents would never understand and my friends don't need to know.
My forum friends are the only ones I trust with any information about my IVA.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
If we turned the clock back 50 years, to the days when there was no credit, people still managed to have good lives by living within their means and saving up for special occasions or more expensive items.
In a way, I wonder if people were happier with the simplicity of life in those days, rather than the lives we live now surrounded by electronic gadgetry, needing to keep up with the Jones' and the pressure of being constantly marketed to through the media.
Maybe Frugal friends could do a study on it!!!......I suggest a 2 week trip to Greece in several years time to see how happy the Greeks are, on the whole, without any money!! ) ... As MP,s and town hall councillors would say "it would merely be a fact finding mission!! )
Must admit that having lived in a time where my parents didn't take out any credit and we had no central heating or double glazing or all of the gadgetry, I do prefer living now even though I am broke!
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
MelanieGiles wrote:
If we turned the clock back 50 years, to the days when there was no credit, people still managed to have good lives by living within their means and saving up for special occasions or more expensive items.
In a way, I wonder if people were happier with the simplicity of life in those days, rather than the lives we live now surrounded by electronic gadgetry, needing to keep up with the Jones' and the pressure of being constantly marketed to through the media.
I have found, over the last 9 months ( leading up to an in an IVA ) that life HAS become simpler in many ways. Once you get a grip ( and I am still learning) on budgetting, paying with cash is far simpler. Learning to live with what you have and can afford is much simpler and, knowing you haven't got the money and can't get the credit takes much of that old "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality away ( takes a bit of getting used to though).
It's more of an emotional and psyhcological transformation really and, I think, one of the best bits about IVA's. With all of that pressure ( not only to gain material possessions but to then juggle the payments for them) removed ... your outlook on life becomes far less clouded.
Can't really explain it properly --- but our parents and grandparents were less stressed due to their finances, which gave them that extra energy to enjoy the othert things in life.
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
Well said Foggy, and I totally agree with you. I'm at the very start of this journey (just getting paperwork together for the IVA), and hope to copy as well as the many fab posters on this forum x
Today (15/09/11) I start my journey to a debt free future ~ happy days!
Quite agree Foggy. At the rate I was going they would have carried me out of HMRC in a coffin. Now I accept that all I really need is shelter, food and warmth in the winter. Everything else is a want. Retirement brings its challenges, but I can live on my pension and there are so many enjoyable things to do that are totally free, it just meant taking a different view of life...
Saying there was no access to credit 50 odd years ago is not strictly true. There were many “money lenders” in those days and before, but I don’t think debt was discussed as freely as it is now.
I agree with Kallis, maybe the stress of debt was not as prevalent then but there were many things worse then than there are now such as the standard of housing and health. The film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning had some good lines in it: “Look I'll go and see me Aunt Ada, she'll know what to do, she's had 14 kids of her own and I'm sure she's got rid of as many others.” “The good old days? When kids had nowt to eat and no shoes on their feet?” However, I also see Melanie’s point about modern life and us being bombarded with “must have” gadgets. If you have kids, I don’t know how you manage. Give a product a number, iPhone 4 for example, and as soon as the iPhone 5 is out, it makes the previous version appear obsolete.
I like the phrase: “People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t know”.
I think I need a lie down now!
True, Sensible, there have been money lenders in this country ever since we invited the Jews here to do that very thing (in Medieval England the overriding Catholic faith prevented money lendimng by Christians) .... of course, that didn't stop the likes of the Knights Templar doing a fair trade from the profession of lending and banking!
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
There used to be someone called the Tallyman to whom you paid a deposit and then weekly payments when you wanted anything.
Provident have also been going for well over 100 years.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
... but there wasn't the "buy now pay later" mentality, or such pressure to keep up with the Jones' (who do the Jones' keep up with ??). In those days you bought something on the never never because you needed it, not because it ws the newest, shiniest gadget out there.
Things didn't have numbers, as Sensible says. A washing machine was a washing machine. You bought one and it went on until it exploded, not until a pink one came out !!
Not everything has changed for the better !!!
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
Thinking about it I still have some "old fashioned financial genes" from my forebears. Yes, I like gadgets, but am generally happy to wait until the newest, shiniest one comes out (in pink) at twice the price, then buy the earlier version at a fraction of it's cost when introduced. As mentioned before, though, I did fall for the Betamax VCR ... and paid the price !!!
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
any questions just say you went a bit crazy with your credit cards and decided to cut them up and start to clear them so you can start fresh in a couple of years If you have kids say you are not wasting money on fancy holidays and are putting money aside for there university or something when they are older Say things are too expensive these days and are watching your money and dont want to waste it on going abroad to sit on a beach and want to chill out at home etc Any more nosey comments tell them to keep there noses out 
) ... As MP,s and town hall councillors would say "it would merely be a fact finding mission!! 
