Unsecured personal loans are sometimes called fast cash or payday loans. The good news is that anyone with a steady paycheck, even those earning minimum wage, can qualify for these types of cash advances. Pay day lending however, can be a very short and painful way out of a temporary situation.

The bad news with unsecured personal loans were payday loans is that you almost never can seem to catch up. A payday advance is extremely expensive! How expensive, you might ask? Some companies charge as much as 25% or more, every couple of weeks. This comes out to 650% for a year. But that’s not the worst of it…

Think about this:
A payday cash advance of $100 for two weeks, would cost $125. So if you pay the loan back in two weeks. You pay them the hundred dollars plus 25 dollars in interest.

So you would think that in four weeks, it would cost an it would cost you $150, right?
WRONG!
The way payday cash advance loans work is that they loan you $100, in two weeks it would cost you $125. But if you couldn’t pay the hundred and $25 in interest, they would simply give you a new loan to pay off the old one.
So for the next two weeks, you would have $125 loan and owe $31.25 in interest.
So a 100 loan, for one month would actually cost $156.25. Here’s a quick look at it just three months for a hundred all alone could cost.

Weeks w/Loan Amount Owed
$100.00
2 weeks $125.00
4 weeks $156.25
6 weeks $195.31
8 weeks $244.14
10 weeks $305.18
12 weeks $381.47

So after four weeks. The typical payday loan of 100 dollars would cost $156.25. After two months it would cost $244.14. And after just three short months. A cash advance of only $100, would cost you $381.47.
This figures out to 650% interest over one year! That’s not the annual percentage rate or APR, but just flat interest-rate.

The last problem with personal payday type loans is that most want access to your checking or savings account. They say this is to make it easier for you but it also allows them full access to your bank accounts. If there’s an error, you fight them about it all the while they take your money.

If however, you are in need of a fast cash loan and are able to pay it off on time, there are several programs that offer your first loan free of interest. I you need a one time short term unsecured personal loan, maybe one of these no interest one-use options are for you.

Remember though, the payday loan businesses will continue to contact you trying to get you to get back in debt. You must be able to ignore these types of marketing plans that would only end up hurting you long-term financial future. Just if you decide to use a payday loan, just make certain you have a plan to pay it back on time.