Did it ever occur to you that for an original loan of just $325, you end up paying almost $800 towards fees and other charges? Mind you, the figure mentioned does not include the principal amount that you borrowed! Unless you are extremely careful, you are quite likely to get trapped into a no fax payday loan or any cash advance that you may decide to avail of. If circumstances demand you to raise cash at a short notice, you would be better off by looking for some source other than payday loan.
On realizing that it would not be possible for you to make payment, it’ll be good if you talk to your lenders. On your giving intimation in advance, the lender has the option of offering you an extension of due date without insisting for late fee or even reporting the matter to the credit bureau. Generally, the lenders would extend the due date and may not charge any penalty for extension granted thereof. It would be worth taking your employer to confidence on the subject and explore the possibility of your working beyond working hours at enhanced rate and making some extra money in the process. May be it’s time to exploit one of your hobbies by selling your talents. Put signboard outside the house and let people know of what product or services you can offer. This could be one long term source of extra income. Well, you may also look for another source of getting some loan with no interest or very low rate of interest to pay back the present one.
The best source will be your employer. Talk to your human resource department, they may have a policy of extending short term loans to employees, meaning that you could get your salary in advance by a month or so. The amount may be paid back in predetermined number of installments. If you get such kind of loan, you should be prepared to live on reduced paycheck for the next couple of months.
These days eBay offers very workable option for getting paid for some of your obsolete or surplus items that are not required by you any more, but some collector my like to have those. Look round the house and make a list of such items. May be you don’t use that old guitar or some such musical instrument or a camera, even old jewelry could fetch you fancy price. Why not put an ad in local newspaper or set it for auction thru eBay. Another way of selling these items could be thru garage sale on weekends, when most of people would be home and my come over to have a look at what all you may have to offer. If you are hard pressed for time to undertake any of these, you have the choice of taking your items to a pawn shop and get quick money.
Given the present circumstances, it may not really be worthwhile to withhold extra money every payday with the intentions of collecting a bigger refund. You may like to visit the IRS website which displays tax-withholding chart enabling you to calculate how much should you be paying. That goes to ensure that you withhold sufficient amount to liquefy your debt by the end of the year. It will be a wise move to cut down on your luxuries, while you must decide priorities of your other household expenses like cable, the Internet, cell phone and the gym membership etc.
You have to look round for some local community organizations who lend a helping hand in such emergencies by way of offering food, loans and even money gifts. Certainly, you could try requesting help from local churches or organizations of the kind of the Salvation Army and Goodwill stores.
By and large one is inclined to look for financial help from friends and family. Notwithstanding their love for you, they would generally be apprehensive of entering into financial deals with you, as it has often been realized by lot many that most often such help leads to losing friendship and causes strained relationships. If you are lucky to get help from this group of people, you must be as punctual in paying back as if you had borrowed from a professional banker or such like lender.
In case you have regular fixed income with reasonably good credit, your banker and credit union should have no hesitation in offering you small personal loans without all the formalities requiring lots of paper work.
You should understand that it is better to use your credit card rather than availing payday loan. But, you need to check that possibility. In case you have regularly been using your credit card for buying groceries or for paying dues against other cards, you might have already exhausted your credit limit! Keep in mind that you are looking for viable alternatives for payday loans and employing your credit card for the purpose could prove to be expensive. But, the fact remains that despite their rates being very high, especially for cash, you will most likely find those to be lower than that charged by any payday lender. Under the circumstances that you are facing, it may be your best option, rather than payday loans. So, you avail of that option but make sure to pay the dues in the shortest possible time without incurring any additional expense. Mind you, it works out to be very expensive to ask for cash against credit card and it calls for utmost caution and smart calculations. If you spend some time looking around for a better deal, you are most likely to find one that works out economical, compared to a payday loan.
You could seek professional help from a consumer credit counselor. He can help with your debt related troubles and prevent your getting into deeper debt. The sooner you approach such counselors, the better it will be, because they can also be of assistance in getting a reduction of interest rate for you and thus enable you to maintain your credit score. You may approach your bank and ask for overdraft facility, so that it can be used for paying overdrawn amounts. This is a better option than having bounced checks and then paying NSF and overdraft charges. Nobody likes digging into savings or such funds that have been preserved for that proverbial rainy day. Now, it’s for you to make an astute judgment and see if the present situation falls in the category of a rainy day. However, it is imperative that you reimburse that reserved fund and bring it to its original level, so that you can use it next time, should such a situation arise.