It's been a little while since I posted here, apologies for being away for a while. Sometimes it's nice not to think about my IVA and enjoy the fact it's over.
Anyway, it's been about a year since I had my offer accepted and my IVA was closed down and I felt an update and some words of encouragement wouldn't go amiss!
Plenty has happened since then; I'm pleased to say that my hard-learned lesson of financial prudence has stuck with me. I still budget and the uplift money I used to pay into the IVA has been saved - nearly £9k banked in the last year!
My venerable old 328i has ticked over 170,000 miles and given that soon she will need a clutch (which will cost nearly what I think the car's worth) I decided to spend some of my savings on replacing the car.
To that end, I picked up this last night - paid for outright, such an amazing feeling!
http://i.imgur.com/zhw42rU.jpg
I still have around £4k in savings for a rainy day and I'll top this up with whatever I get for the old car - probably only a few hundred pounds but everything counts!
I've had a credit card for the last 9 months or so and have stuck rigidly to spending on it - I only use it for fuel and it's paid off in full automatically every month.
5 years after the default my credit score is recovering slowly but won't really soar until the IVA drops off in another 12 months' time. Between now and then I plan to save as much as possible with a view to remortgaging in November 2017. This is the next goal on my financial journey, namely to improve the mortgage interest rate I'm on and move onto a repayment mortgage, probably with an extension in the term.
I've allowed myself a few small treats along the way but overall I've surprised myself with how much I DON'T want to spend money. Money used to slip through my hands like water but now I really think hard about whether I need the things I'm tempted by.
Whilst my IVA feels firmly in the 'rear view mirror' I've not forgotten how tough it was. At times it was awful, the intrusion, the knowledge it was public...however I 100% believe that I did the right thing and I'm proud not only that I saw it through but that I learned the lesson.
I don't mean this post to come across as boastful but more to encourage and inspire those still on their IVA journey: hang in there! Whilst it often doesn't feel like it, there IS light at the end of the tunnel. There is a wonderful sense of relief to knowing you can pay your bills, save and do things like buy a car to replace the old banger you've lived with for years.
Keep going, you WILL get there. It DOES get better!
