I can’t believe that I make my 18th payment into my IPA on 30th November.  That’ll be halfway, and I feel as if I’ll be on the home straight after that.

To be honest it’s going really quickly, and despite the credit crunch we’re still managing.  I thought I might need a payment break last week – I hurt my neck and had to go to the osteopath, but luckily Dave lent me the money and I only needed to go once.

I did find out what I need to do if I need a payment break though – I need to provide Clarke Willmott with proof of the reason I need the break, and then they will consider it.  This would have caused a problem with the osteopath as I couldn’t get proof without going, and therefore borrowing the money, but hey ho, where there’s a will there’s a way!  I did ask what would happen if they didn’t approve the payment break as I would have borrowed the money, but I couldn’t get a straight answer.

To be fair to Clarke Willmott, every other time I’ve had to speak to them they’ve been very helpful and have sorted out any problems I’ve had very quickly.

I seem to be getting there slowly with my credit files.  The list now reads:

Barclaycard – they have sent me a letter confirming that they have removed their entry from my credit file as they have sold the debt to Max Recovery.
Callcredit – they have written to confirm that they will remove the second BR from my file, and I can have a free copy of my credit file to check!
Equifax - they have confirmed they have removed the alias from my account.
Max Recovery – their solicitors Eversheds wrote to confirm that they have updated my files (they bought the debts from Barclaycard and Virgin MBNA) and they have written to Barclaycard asking them to remove their entry.
Next – being a pain in the bum!  They wanted proof that they were included in my bankruptcy.  I sent this to them and haven’t heard anything since.
Tesco Personal Finance – I haven’t had a reply.
Egg Card / Egg Loan – they never replied to my letter but updated my files
Littlewoods – file updated
Natwest – see Egg

As I have to give the companies 28 days to update the files I’m going to order all 3 credit reference files in the New Year.  If any entries are still wrong I’ll go straight to the Information Commissioner, but fingers crossed I won’t need to!

After my initial determination to update my credit reference files I lost interest and didn’t write to my other creditors.  I ordered my statutory report from Equifax and checked the entries for the creditors that I had written to.  I was pleasantly surprised!

Littlewoods – marked as partially satisfied
Natwest – marked as partially satisfied
Egg Loan – marked as partially satisfied
Egg Card – marked as partially satisfied

I was surprised about the Egg entries as they hadn’t replied to my letter.

The one big disappointment was Barclaycard – they had replied to my initial letter saying that they would mark the account as partially satisfied, but when I checked the entry it’s still showing as defaulted and they have sold it to Max Recovery who are also on the report so it looks as though I owed both companies!

On Monday I posted letters to Barclaycard (again!), Next Directory, Tesco Personal Finance and Max Recovery (Barclaycard and Virgin).  Once 6 weeks have passed I’ll order my credit files from Experian, Equifax and Call Credit and see if everything has been done – if not it’ll be letters to the Information Commissioner!

The Callcredit file could be interesting as they had me being bankrupt twice on the same day, but I haven’t written to them yet – I want to see if it’s corrected when I get the file again.

One very positive thing – I noticed on my Equifax file that I had an alias.  It was only a misspelling of my name, but I wanted it cleared up.  I completed their online complaint form and had an email within a week saying the entry had been removed.  Obviously I’ll have to check, but fingers crossed!

I often see posts from people on the forum asking if they can go through an IVA without their partner knowing, and while I can understand that it’s not the easiest subject to talk about (”By the way darling, I’m £65k in debt” doesn’t go down too well over dinner!) I think it’s sad that people feel that they can’t share their worries.

An IVA is tough, and to try and survive on your own for 5 years must be very hard.  I couldn’t have tried an IVA without Dave’s support – he was there for me through the short-lived IVA and has been a big support to me through my BR.  It’s good to be able to talk about worries and problems, and if he wants to go out and I haven’t got any money at least he understands why.

When I first told Dave I had problems he was great.  He calmed me down and told me to look on the internet for a solution, hence the IVA.  Unfortunately that didn’t work, and he was there for me again during BR.  It took me a long time to admit how much I actually owed though, and even longer to tell my mum!  She has been a big support as well, although I was dreading telling her – she took it very well and said “Oh well, everyone’s doing it these days!”  Not what I was expecting, but a pleasant surprise!

I have also been open with my friends – they now know why I can’t always afford to go out, and why there’s only a fiver in their children’s birthday cards instead of an expensive pressie (bought on credit).

I’m not saying that my way is the right way, but I wanted to share my experiences in case it helps someone else.