A Payday Loan, the no-shame loan

Why do I feel embarrassed to take out a payday loan?

If you can’t pay your mortgage try a payday loan. (Image via Wikipedia)

I suppose it’s something handed down by old-fashioned, strait-laced parents; something that goes like, ‘respectable people don’t borrow money or a payday loan’. My question in response is: Not even in times like these?

Normal times

In normal times I would agree that taking a loan is usually a last resort, except of course when it is for legitimate reasons. And there are many legitimate reasons in today’s society: a mortgage, setting up or buying a business, a car. Those are long term loans and most people have them. The more sensitive loan is a short-term loan and this is the loan that seems to cause embarrassment.

Abnormal times

In today’s world, short term loans have become part of daily life. Many people cannot make it through to the end of the month until the next salary check arrives, so they avail themselves of one of the popular short term loan facilities, like the Payday Loan, which is exactly what it sounds like. Others take short term loans for a fixed period such as 3, 6 or 12 months. I overheard two of my grandchildren negotiating over a 3 day loan – ‘I’ll pay you back in 3 days – as soon as I get my allowance on Monday.’

Special times

So why do we all live on the edge of a short term loan? Most of us don’t, but things happen. For instance, I can tell you now that come October, I’ll be looking for a short term loan. I bought my last car in October. So every year on the car’s anniversary I am hit with license fees and insurance. My salary simply cannot stand the strain. I start off by trying to negotiate terms to pay off the insurance which is the heaviest of the payments. Sometimes I succeed, and am told that I can pay it over 6 months, but in other years I have failed. That’s when I run for a short term or Payday Loan. I am not embarrassed in the slightest.

Extra-special times

The room next to my study is used as a painting studio. It has a sofa, an easel, a side table full of pictures of the kids when they were small and a makeshift trestle table piled high with paints, brushes, containers of all shapes and sizes, you name it. The walls are covered with sketches, many yellow and cracked from hanging there for years, posters, notes and bits of paper stuck up with anything from hooks to bits of tape.

The problem is the family objections – as far as I can understand they expect to see a modern hi-tech artist’s studio done up in gleaming stainless steel and with no paints or brushes in sight. I have bad news for them – there is no such place.  If I decide to appease the family, and do something about the room, even the minimum, I would have to take out a payday loan to cover the costs of a couple of tables, some pin boards on the walls and a coat of paint.

Hard financial times-what would you do?

In these hard financial times, I need to decide whether a payday loan is something I should take out to fix up my artist’s studio, or should I, and my family, put up with it the way it is?  It all depends on the urgency to me.  I think I will wait on this one, knowing I’m going to need that payday loan come October.