Hey everyone! This is my first “real” blog. I know a lot of you know me from the DebtCC forums, so I’m going to tell my story with the hope that it helps some people become aware of some of the mistakes I made, and it will perhaps prevent some from making the same ones.
My first memory and experience with payday loans is from high school. My mom was a single mom after I turned 14 when my parent separated. This was a great thing for me, because my dad and I fought constantly, and when I was finally “old enough” my mom explained to me that she never really loved my dad, but she only married to have a baby because she was getting too old, of course, back then, 35 was considered too old to have a baby. So, after giving it a lot of thought, my mom decided to separate from my dad, thinking it was going to be better for all of us. It was for a few years. My dad was very supportive of me financially and emotionally. He called me all the time, and even after he moved a few hours away, he came to see me all the time, I went to visit him, and we got along really well…better than ever before! The only problem with all of this was that my mom, while receiving money for child support, was still behind on all the bills because of course, my dad’s income helped tremendously, and now we were only getting a small portion of that income. My mom used to get payday loans from the local convenience store. She always paid them back the very next paycheck though. We were never in the hole I ended up in later!
So, after a few years my dad began seeing less and less of me. Once I turned 18 and graduated from high school, he became extremely distant. He hardly called, he stopped paying child support, even though I still live with my mom. And I know that is the law, I mean, he didn’t have to keep paying after I turned 18, but he did still have to be there for me, and he was not. I went about a year after high school before getting a real job. I didn’t think college was for me, because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I assumed that since I didn’t know that I shouldn’t waste time or money in college because, what if I didn’t need college? So, I got a job at our local AIDS Service Organization as a part-time file clerk. I learned so much about the disease, the people that live with it, and the office environment in general. I realized there that I wanted to make a difference in the lives of those struggling with disease or any sort of hardship, but I also knew that social work was not my forte. So, I still was not sure how I was going to help.
I met my current boyfriend after I had been working at the AIDS Foundation for about a year. He placed such high value on education, and convinced me to go to college, just for a semester to try it out. I enrolled in the local community college and realized that I LOVED COLLEGE!! I made straight A’s my first semester, I was 21 and I felt a little old in all my classes, but I think that by starting late, it made me want to finish that much more. During this time, my father became more and more distant. The turning point in our relationship was when I asked him to help me pay for college. I was unfairly terminated from my job at the AIDS Foundation in April 2003 and I had missed the deadline to apply for financial aid, and so I asked him to help me with a few hundred dollars for 2 classes. He refused, giving me some bull**** reason about me having to “prove myself” to him first. So, I ended up borrowing money from my boyfriend’s parents. They were really great, not asking me to repay them right away, but at the same time, I had just lost my job. I went the whole summer just doing temp office jobs here and there, but it was never enough, especially since I had a car and insurance payment, as well as credit card payments. I stopped paying all my credit cards, and the harrassing calls started. I took out my first payday loan from an online lender, Quikpayday.com. I know many of you have dealt with them. It started out ok at first. I would extend the loan once or twice, and then get lucky with a more long-term temp job and be able to pay it back. It wasn’t much, just $100 a few times and $200 once. I stopped as soon as I got a permanent job in September 2003. I didn’t turn to payday loans again for another year.
So, a year went by and my boyfriend and I moved a few hours away from home becuase I transferred to a 4-year university to finish my degree. It was now September 2004. I got lucky and found another job at a non-profit in the area. They pay pretty well. $11/hr., but this isn’t enough when you’ve got rent to worry about. I was living at home with my mom before, and this living on my own thing was a whole different ball game. I began to take out 1 or 2 payday loans at a time. I would pay them back, and it wasn’t out of control. But in January 2005, both my boyfriend and I had our credit cards stolen, totaling $2000 in charges. While our bank helped re-imburse us at first for most of it, we had to pay for some of it. So, I ended up taking out more and more payday loans. My boyfriend makes good money, and just assumed I was ok financially because he always wanted to go out and spend money, and I had to appear that I could keep up with him, even though I couldn’t. He planned a trip to NYC for March 2005. I lied and told him that I’d be able to afford it, and I ended up getting payday loans to help cover the cost of the trip.
Long story short, I never caught up.
It got increasingly worse. I ended up with 12 payday loans by the end of that summer 2005. I finally got really desperate and turned to a shady online loan company who said they would loan me $5000 for a $500 deposit, and like a dummy, I paid it. I lied to my mom about the use of the money, and borrowed it from her, thinking I could pay her back as soon as I got the loan. Of course, it was a scam, and I never heard from the company or saw my money again. The name of the company was Financial Solutions Internatioanl. STAY AWAY FROM THEM IF YOU COME ACROSS IT! Or any other “deposit required” loan for that matter…they’re ALL SCAMS!
I dug myself in deeper. I finally broke down and told my mom about it. She sympathized and loaned me $2500 to pay back some of the PDL’s. But because I was so ashamed of how much I owed, I didn’t tell her the full amount. So, with that $2500, I got rid of about 9 of them, but still had 3. And we all know how 3 can become 6 in a couple of months, right? So, I dug myself back in, and because I had already promised my mom “no more payday loans” I felt bad to ask her for the money.
I finally found DebtCC and began using some of the wonderful information to become debt free. I enrolled with T&C and even got some of my loans marked “PAID” with Polly’s letter. I got rid of 7 PDL’s with that letter and only have 7 to pay back now. I’m only paying $45 a week with T&C and I haven’t taken out a PDL in almost 3 months. It feels great. I don’t know what I would have done without DebtCC, and I hope I can help out anyone who needs it in the future.
Well, Las Vegas was definitely awesome. We saw 4 shows, all very awesome! Carrot Top, The Price is Right Live, The Amazing Jonathan, and others. I won 1,000 comp points on the Price is Right, so that was cool. We got a great buffet discount at the Paris hotel for it! Yummy!
But then, waiting at the airport to leave, I decided to give it one more shot, so I put $10 into a nickel machine, and WON $100!!!! So, smartly, I stopped, ending up about $60 ahead! WooHoo!!! 