Thoughts on Iva

Still ask myself did i do the right thing taking an IVA but need to remember i don;t think i had any other choice at the time, i had passed that moment where i had no money, no one would give me a credit card and was shopping each week feeling sick at the checkout in case my card got declined. So the answer has to be yes.
I feel it did work because i got through the 5 years, it's only now that it is effecting me, i need a mortgage and even though i finished my IVA a few months early thinking it would look good, i have found every company i have approached will not touch me until at least 6 years after the IVA started so finishing early meant nothing.
I would say a few positive things came out of me taking an IVA firstly i didn;t lose my home, i was very lucky in that i have a company pension that matched up to 8% of what i put in, so during the 5 years of the IVA i put all pay rises into my pension and some, because they couldn't touch it (this might have changed now or changes between who you go with for your IVA). Before the IVA i could only afford a small percent to put into my pension, by the end of it i was paying up to 12% which adds up over 5 years and hopefully will help me in retirement later on in life.
The next positive thing wasn't planned and happened out of the blue but helped me towards the end of the IVA, i met someone (who would have me for all my faults) and i moved in with her, this allowed me to rent my home out and become a landlord having someone else pay the mortgage on my home, forgetting about the property and being a landlord it helped me towards the end of the IVA because your debts are with your home so the IVA people couldn't touch anything in that house because someone else was now living there, and they couldn't touch anything in the girlfriends house.
I am currently hoping to get a mortgage hopefully early next year on the girlfriends home and in the process find cash to get a landlords mortgage for another property to rent out, these are just dreams at the moment.
I wanted to share this because i want you to know no matter how shit and low you are at the moment and think there is no way out and never will be, i need you to think that you never know what is round the corner, yes it may take five years which seems a life time, but with positive thinking and planning you will be on a better road.