So i am about 3 days away from completing my post grad diploma (as long as do eventually complete this essay!…the allure of facebook is always far to appealing! tracking down and spying on people is  a strange and addictive past time…) anyway i am getting of the point. Once my course is finsihed what am i going to do! Not many people know about my iva (just me i know obvioulsy, my boyfriend and my best friend) thats it..so my course has always proved a very good excuse to get out of expensive nights out/trips away. ” oh no sorry i cant.. assignemt to write” …” sorry i am doing some reading”.

 I have for the record tried before “i am skint” ” sorry no cash” ” completly brassic”…there are a lot of ways to say i am poor… but its always met with ” oh stick it on the card” (what a card i feel like asking) or ” i will lend it to you” (i really cant borrow money on such a tight budget!)

Cos the truth of it is its not that i dont have any money - allthough it feels like it…its that it is all carefully apportioned off for other things.. so if i spend the grocery money on a friday night bender i am going to be a very hungry young lady!

so here is my dilema…what do i say in aprox 3 days time when my course is no longer an excellant excuse… ? I am not in postion - emotionally to have the strength to tell people, i dont see (a) why i should its my personal bussiness i dont demand to know their ins and outs with the banks and (b) i am embrassed i am ashamed of it! Before i hear your crys of ..”at least you are doing something about it” and in 4 years just think what a better positon you wil be in”…. fundementally we would all be lieing if we said we were proud! Proud of the fact that we got into such horrific levels of debt! ,…. ok i am proud of myself and others out there who have decided to do something about it…but i dont want to sing it from the roof tops.

Cos deep down we all know people make judgements.. ” oh poor love is in debt spent all her money on shoes… blh blah” “silly irresponsiable immature”… ” you will be blacklisted forever” ” why cant you be like so and so”..  The whole world is in debt hey there is credit crisis… a crunch .. but everyone is too proud to say - things are tight we cant afford that or this. Because we are all desperate to catch up with those next door!

Even me… ok i dont have anything these days in the mateiral sense of the word….but i wont admit that to anyone. I would rather stay in with the cats and chat to my “debt friend” under a fake name…….being anonmous on the forum and on the blogs does provide a sense of strenght and confidence to talk about fears and worries. But as soon as i am not logged on i am still living a lie to lots of people pretending… and i know they are prentening to .. but who is going to crack first! .. thats the dilema!

after alot of waiting! my review went well … as i had already increased my paymetns in line with salary increases throughout the year my IP was happy with my payments and there were no surprises…. thank god! (or which ever you chosen belief is!)

 So the second year begins, a part of me believes i have learnt my lesson about managing money however, i am sitting here with £30 till pay day.. which is the end of the month. I have to put petrol in the car, buy food, expenses for work…. I have done it before and i now i will manage but it makes me realise that being in debt is not all down to the evil corporate credit machines and banks ,,, throwing your credit agreements, begging you “to buy now pay later”…

I have decided that in my second year of my IVA there is no point in reflection…trying to work out the reasons why i got into the situation and thinking how i am going to get out of it. I feel like i have spent the last 12 months pondering and to be honest the reasons I am rubbish with money and got into debt just go on and on…

I think my second year will be marked with living!  It about time i lived.. ok so i am not exactly going to be able to do everything i want.. or think i want… but i am going to have think outside the box.. “that it all costs money” and start to think about just living ..living with being in budget!

So with this in mind..today i embarked on “how to go for a drink after work without paying”… it was surprsing successful.. all though a tip for others not sure you can repeat this one to much without being labelled a cheapskate ..LOL