I have always heard that it is best to avoid the bad credit payday loans that are available to people who are struggling to make ends meet, but after growing up in a family that struggled financially from time to time, I can honestly say that sometimes it is simply unavoidable.
When I was a senior in high school, both of my parents lost their jobs and I had to go to work at a local grocery store to help the family get by. This meant that college had to be delayed for about a year, but I was always raised to believe that family comes first, which I still believe today.
When my parents did finally find new jobs, they were not nearly for the amount they had been making and we were behind on bills. As we tried to get caught up, and because my parents' credit was pretty much shot, we applied for the first of many bad credit payday loans and were determined to pay it back as soon as possible.
At first, we were very diligent about it. We all realized that we were being ripped off with the high interest rates and miniscule period of time we had to repay the loans, but what else could we do? When you are not making ends meet and don't have enough food for the week, you do what you have to do to get by.
After we had applied for and paid back four or five bad credit payday loans, we ran into a little bit of a problem. Money was still very tight, and the only car we had in the family broke down, so we had to use the money we were planning to use to repay the loan to have the car fixed. This put us even further behind, and it took us a few months to get caught up on that loan.
I have heard it argued that the companies that provide these bad credit payday loans should be outlawed, and I am always torn when I hear people say that. On one hand, they do rip people off and it seems to become a vicious cycle where you can never really get caught back up or make that much headway on the bills you already have.
On the other hand, there is often no other way to get money when you really, really need it than to go to one of these companies and apply for such a loan. Do these people take advantage of the poor? Absolutely; there is no question about it. If it had not been for bad credit payday loans, however, I am not sure that our family would have been able to make it through those difficult times.