How are Insolvency Service letters like buses?

How are Insolvency Service letters like buses? When three come at once, of course.

So, some news at last, some of it good and some that needs to be challenged. First the good news - we get to keep the car and we don't have to 'buy' any interest in it, so that is a big relief. I never thought I'd be as relieved as this - I don't even like the damned noddy car - but at least it's ours and we don't have to go through the experience of having our car sold from under us. Chalk one up to our side for once!

Next up, on looking at the budget details that I gave them they want me to agree to an Income Payment Agreement of £300 per month for the next three years. Now, I was hoping to avoid an IPA, but I guess I did really expect one - after all I'm a bankrupt and the Insolvency Service has to do it's best to claw something back for my creditors (even if they are faceless banking corporations - the same bastards that screwed our country for years to come). The amount of £300 feels a bit steep - and frankly I don't know how I'll pay it at the moment - but the first step is to challenge some of the figures from the Insolvency Service; I have realised over the last couple of months that I missed a few things off that I'm able to claim for and so I'll have a go at reducing the IPA to something that feels a little more reasonable. Of course, I may not succeed - in which case I shut up and get on with paying, but I have to try.

Still no news on the house, but I guess I feel a little better that I'm close to an agreement on the IPA (even if it makes things tight for three years). I hope soon to be in the phase where I just get my head down, pay monthly what I need to pay, have no more scary paperwork to deal with - and get to the point where I'm no longer bankrupt. I realise that following that is still the huge stage of trying to recover my credit rating - but that is still a long way away, and one step at a time.

Two months

Two months down. Still no news on the house or the car.

Worse than bankers

I never thought it was possible, but there are some people in the world who are worse than bankers:

Thousands of households have taken out loans with interest rates averaging 825% during "the worst Christmas in a generation" for illegal doorstep lending, according to a new report.

Read the whole thing at : http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/15/loan-sharks-poorest-households (The Guardian, 15th. January, 2010)

Using plastic for rent

No real surprise to those of us who have suffered or are in the process of suffering money problems - it has just been reported that up to a million families have had to resort to paying for their mortgage or rent with credit cards over the last year. Well done Shelter for exposing this, the following is a quote from the Guardian:

About 1 million families have resorted to using credit cards to pay their mortgage or rent during the past year, the housing charity Shelter claimed today.

A survey by the organisation found around 6% of households had used their plastic during the past 12 months, in order to keep up with their housing costs.

People in working class professions were most likely to use debt to cover their mortgage or rent at 8%, but 4% of ABC1s also admitted they had used their credit card in this way.

Read the whole thing at : http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/11/credit-card-mortgage-rent (The Guardian, 11th. January, 2010)

Too broke for bankruptcy

My wife will be going bankrupt shortly too and the other day she called up the courts to book an appointment. To my surprise she could get in within 24 hours, and actually she had to decline the date as she hasn't filled in her Statement of Affairs yet. The lady at the court said that it was pretty quiet at the moment - this surprised me as I expected that many people would hold off going bankrupt until after the holidays. My wife, as ever, figured it out - nobody has the money to go bankrupt at the moment.

Unbelievable isn't it - right now people are too broke to go bankrupt. I guess the rush will be February.

Happy New Year

Christmas and the New Year are now behind us and, most importantly, the kids had a great time. Hopefully they didn't spot much of a difference from previous years. Last year one of my New Year's resolutions was to reduce my debt - and it just goes to show that the saying 'be careful what you wish for, you may get it' is so true! Yes, here I am with far less debt than last year, but I would have never expected the means by which I reduced that debt! This year therefore I decided that my only resolution should be to make sure that I enjoy myself more - life is too short, after all. Last Saturday myself and a few friends went walking in Northumberland, along part of Hadrian's Wall - and it was glorious. You have to remember what is real.

Happy New Year.

(Thanks to Uncle Tone for the photo - Average Joe tackles the drifts next to Hadrian's Wall)