www.iva.co.uk

12 months ago we made our call to DFD ...that was the first step in our debt free life. From that day we have not used a single form of credit, we have lived within our means, on a budget, managed to have a few weekends away, bought xmas and b'day presents for neices and nephew and still kept a smile of our faces!!

I am so glad we came to our senses 12 months ago.....stopped using credit cards to rob peter to pay paul......we can now go out at a weekend and do things that we know will be paid for completely - we don't get the nasty statements, the volume of post or phone calls - it's quite a pleasant life really now!

It's not easy - trying to feed, put petrol in two cars and have a standard of living on £150 per week - but hey it is so much better than forever using plastic!!!

September will be the first review for our IVA - having just had a review done due to my husbands £3k pay rise and no change to our payments agreed, I do not believe that we will be asked to increase payments come September - therefore we can live, we can enjoy,and we can get through the next four years with smiles on our faces and pride - pride that our creditors will at aleast get some of the money back we spent (what we spent it on, I will never know..but that was then) - I will never have a credit card again - finance for a car will be my limit, possibly a mortgage - but never a credit card - if I haven't got the cash then I can't have the goods!

Good luck everyone ! Life does get better!!!

well done lulu, hopefully my iva will be approved in the next month.

Well done Luluj,its a much easier journey if you get settled into a routine.

We are paying £400 a month into our trust deed and once its finished we could save that 400 a month or overpay our mortgage for a while,we have never before thought of saving money in that way. The IVA or trust deed up here in haggis-land truely is a great form of financial re-education. I used to think I was good at sorting out the monthly budget but we rarely kept to it and always used plastic,well those days have gone and will not be returning to the plasticdaft household EVER!!!

Yesterday afternoon I thought back to a few months ago, and how me and hubbie would probably have gone out and spent money on the the plastic.

Instead, we did a small top up shop at Tesco and that was it.

I will probably use my money towards my mortgage as well, plus the money from my secured loan which finishes round about the same time as my IVA.

It would be good to be totally debt free in a few years!

Reading those posts has given me great hope that soon I will be there soon! So pleased for you Lulu and good look with the rest of you debt free existence!

best thing to do with a credit card.....get a blow torch and melt it

Always useful for scraping the ice off the windscreen!

glad i not using them anymore, my new bank balance is positive an staying that way. its hard living within the budget, but we managing just be glad when iva sorted an phone stops ringing

I shall never have another credit card again! My only bits of plastic are loyalty cards, National Insurance card, cashpoint card, and that's about it!

I never want one either.

I think you definitely do become dependant on them. It's a strange scary feeling when you first stop using/relying on them.

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