Surveys and lending

I started to do an online survey today relating to getting loans online, and gave up: the questions became increasingly ridiculous, and I couldn't be bothered. I started doing online surveys when I was out of work in 2006, having been assured time and again that these surveys would bring heaps of money. I am so naive it's not funny. But when you're feeling rather desperate after giving up a reasonably paid job, anything seems possible.

I have had some benefits from them - one in particular is getting a couple of cinema tickets every so often as a result of doing the surveys. But that's about it; the other amounts that turn up are pretty minimal. You'd have to be doing surveys all day long, and I'm already crazy enough without contemplating such a way of spending my time.

Anyway back to getting loans online: a lot of these kinds of loan are of payday loan type, where you can get money lent to you using something like your car as collateral. Not a terribly good idea, especially if something happens to your car. Borrowing money is something we've all had to do at times, and there are plenty of opportunities for the unwary to get themselves into hot water these days. If you're going to borrow money, go to a place that can be trusted, has a good reputation and won't fleece you silly.

There are more than enough of these around; the loan mightn't happen instantly, but neither will it cost you an arm and a leg, items that most of us can do with, rather than without.

More on payday loans

I was checking out the post I did recently on payday loans, and discovered that the Amazon associates thingee that works on this blog (when it feels like) had added a couple of links to the post. One was for a book on budgeting, (The Simplified Personal Budget Book) which was good and sensible, but the other was to a neon sign announcing Payday Loans and costing $316US. And then I discovered that having clicked on the link, the jolly thing was now sitting in my shopping cart! How’s that for misguided budgeting?
When I went to clear my cart I found that there were two other items in it as well (!) – one the complete series of West Wing, which had been added in May this year, and the other for something called Gemagic, which my wife had seen on tv in Valencia and fallen in love with. She bought it from somewhere else in the end. And we ordered a copy of the West Wing set from one of Amazon’s dealers – and never got it. Amazon very graciously refunded us.
Payday loans are intended for emergency use only, but to my way of thinking they’re a bit iffy. I know from experience how difficult loans are to pay back (and so do some members of my family). I’d advise against using one of these, unless the dire straits were so dire that there was no other alternative. But maybe buy the budget book first!