The Risks Associated With Payday Loans

September 05, 2020

Life is full of risk. From the moment you step out of bed in the morning (slip on a rug?) to when you head back to bed at night (forgot to lock the door?), there are chances you’ll make the wrong moves or forget to make the right ones. If you decide it’s time to get a payday loan, how do you know if it is the right decision for you?


Financial risks of all kinds are impossible to predict with any certainty. But with payday loans, you can anticipate what some of those risks might be and take preventive efforts to avoid them. Here are a few:


  • Failure to pay back on schedule – The best way to avoid extra charges on a payday loan (online or in the loan agency near you) is to pay it back with the next paycheck (the way payday cash advances were always meant to be, long before there was an Internet). Let it go one or two pay periods longer and your costs multiply.

  • Using multiple lenders at the same time – If you take out a payday loan one at a time, that can be smart financial management. If you are using two or more payday loan companies at the same time you will dig a hole that could be difficult to crawl out of. Simply, take out one loan at a time only.

  • Not using it constructively – The most important reason to take out a payday loan is to do it while working toward a goal. Maybe it is to simply pay bills on time. Great. Maybe it’s to finance a child’s education, or help a relative get back to good health. The key point is that with the loan, better things should result than if you didn’t take out the loan.

There simply are no guarantees. But if you approach your payday loan with an educated understanding of how to avoid the risks, your probability of success will be greater.