Monday, 28 November 2011

Cash Advances

By Gavin Humphreys


When you need money quickly, your options are going to be limited. There are cash advances though, as well as payday loans which are much the same. What these really are are very short term loans which you can take out quickly, which makes them particularly helpful if you are facing a financial emergency.

Cash Advances: How They Work

What is going to be explained first of all is the application process for cash advances. This can all be done online now, so you're just going to have an online form to fill out. The questions are going to be centred around your employment situation, and the following information will help you to determine whether you'll qualify or not.

Generally speaking if you are going to get a cash advance then you are going to have to pay it back when you are next paid. And you usually have to get a monthly salary in order to qualify. Also of course you are going to have to make enough in a month to be able to cover the loan.

There won't be many more questions apart from that, except for personal details of course. It should only be a short form that you have to fill out. For example, there's going to be no need for you to submit to a credit check, lenders of these loans aren't bothered about that since they are very short term loans. Which is good because it makes the process more speedy.

Best Uses for a Cash Advance

When you are considering the sorts of things that cash advances can be useful for, you can really see that just from the way in which they work. You have to pay them back when you are next paid, and that being the case, it only makes sense to take out a loan of this sort for something you need the money for urgently. Also, due to the expense of the interest rate on top, it also has to be important as well.

In terms of what is important enough to justify taking out a cash advance, nobody can say that except for you. The lender certainly isn't going to impose any limits, it makes no difference to them what you spend the money on as they are only concerned that you are going to be able to pay the money back. You could use the money for anything from paying a utility bill to going out drinking.

On the whole though, most people would only consider the utility bill to be an emergency. And even then, that's only if it is a final demand. Having said that though, it could be that you consider going out drinking to be an emergency. Maybe it's for someone's birthday for example, or a leaving do. If it's important enough to you then that's all that matters.

How Much does a Cash Advance Cost?

From the information already provided then you should now have a good idea about how they work and why they are useful. All that is left then is to answer how expensive they are. Lots of people get the wrong idea about that because they think that, with the APR being so high, they must be very expensive. With these being very short term loans though, the APR is misleading.

With most loans of course, knowing what the APR is can be a big help. Especially if you are thinking about your yearly budget, as you can fit that figure in to it directly. However, the loans we are considering only last a month so their APR should not be a relevant figure at all. It's only useful in telling you not to take a year to repay the loan!

How much are you actually going to be charged? Well that's something which is going to be different with different lenders of course. Generally speaking though it's probably going to be around the 25% mark, which is a good rate for this kind of loan.




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