The Married Couple

We are in our early thirties and it was fantastic news when we found out my wife was pregnant. We were delighted, but what we perhaps hadn’t realised was just how big an impact it would have on our day-to-day income – The amount we earned fell by almost half.

A combination of different expenses and interest on loans meant we had soon accumulated a debt of £42,000, which would have taken us 11 years to pay back. The thought of going bankrupt was alarming so it came as a big relief when a counsellor told me an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) might be the best way forward.

The counsellor looked at our circumstances and said they could approach the people we owed money to and negotiate an IVA with them. We showed what we were able to realistically afford and the results were fantastic. Because we could not afford to repay everything, £18,000 of our debt was written off and our interest was frozen too, saving even more.

Our creditors stopped chasing us, because they had agreed to the IVA, and we now have just one monthly payment to meet. After 60 months of payments we’ll be able to make a fresh start and we’ve become very good at sticking to our new budget. We have enough to live comfortably, our home is safe, and it’s a big relief not to have the phone ringing with requests for payment all the time.