If you’ve ever asked someone with any financial sense at all whether you should take out paydays loans or a personal loan, you probably received your answer very quickly. Personal loans are always better if you can get them. But is that necessarily true? Is it really always better to take out a personal loan? The answer may not be as simple as some people would like to make it.
Don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying you’ve received bad advice. When you add up the dollars and cents, it almost always makes sense to take out a personal loan instead of a payday loan. After all, if you take out a personal loan for $400 at 12% interest rate (which is actually a bit high for personal loans), your payments are just $35.54 per month. In the end, you pay back about $416.
Simple math will tell you that you paid $16 dollars to borrow the money. If you had taken out a payday loan on the same amount and the same stated interest rate, you will make one repayment of $448. Not only will you end up paying $32 more to borrow the money, but you will have to pay it all back at once.
Thus, many people are told that they should always consider a personal loan instead of a payday loan. However, here are some instances when the payday loan might make better sense for you:
You need cash right away. Payday loans can generally be processed in less than an hour. Personal loans may take much longer.
You are expecting a sizable paycheck and can pay the payday loan off without problems, but the added monthly bill of a personal loan repayment would create a hardship for you.
A personal loan would require collateral. If you don’t have anything valuable that you are willing to risk losing, an unsecured payday loan might be a better option. Generally speaking, unless your credit is stellar, personal loans require some form of collateral.
You don’t want to bring a cosigner into the mix. Again, those with less than perfect credit often require a cosigner for personal loans. Having friends or family member cosign a loan for you is the fastest way to damage your relationships. Sometimes it’s just better to keep others out of your financial business.