mperez’s blog

It started out so innocently.  I’m a single mom of a special needs son.  I’ve never lived lavishly but I’ve also never done a very good job of managing my finances either.  One day out of desperation I found my first payday loan.  This was the biggest mistake of my life.  Years go by and I kept adding one after another - finally when the blocks started to tumble I was juggling 15 loans at one time.  I was working 50 t0 60 hours a week to make enough in my paycheck to pay all the fees and have something to live on.  I always squeaked by but I was late on every living expense I had.  I was always just making it with loans against my retirement fund, medical reimbursement checks, tax refunds etc.  Then things started to change.  For one my apartment complex was purchased by a major apartment corporation.  The new owners had zero tolerance on late rent.  If you couldn’t clear up your account by the end of the month you were evicted.  I was used to an apartment manager that knew my family and medical cost situation and as long as I made payments and communicated my intent I could be 6 to 8 weeks behind and it wasn’t a problem.  They knew I was always one refund or reimbursement check away of catching up and I always did.  The new owners were a different story.  Things also started to shift at work too.  The overtime was starting to settle down and I could see the end was coming.  The day of reckoning finally came.  I had the payday that completely wiped out my account and bounced the last ACH which was a $50 paydown on a United Cash loan.  I quickly transferred the $100 I had deposited into a savings account (which I always transferred out every payday) to clear up the negative balance and give myself $70 dollars to live on for two weeks.  Before I could get it out of the bank United Cash loan re-deposited their ACH and now I was left with $20 for two weeks.  Back to the internet I came and I tried to find a way to consolidate all of the payday loans.  My searches brought me to this site.  I quickly found out that I had actually joined this site last year but I had completely forgot about it.  I stayed up all night reading the threads and by sunrise I knew what I had to do.  The journey begins…..