Advance Cash Loan

It’s a tough thing to balance the check book these days. For anyone who has to survive on a pay check, the money seems to run out much faster than it seems to come in. For a long time, I thought I was the only one who didn’t know how to manage my money. I was always short of cash whenever the need for it arose. And so, I borrowed from friends, family and even the good old credit card whenever I needed some urgent cash. Believe me, it might have improved the quality of my life, but it sure put me under a whole lot of debt!

I was discussing this with a colleague the other day when he told me about something that changed my life. He told me that it was just for situations like this that the concept of advance cash loans were offered by companies. I knew that I should have looked at the employee manual with greater care. If I had, I would have found the advance cash loan tucked away amidst the employee benefits. But now that I knew about it, I sure wasn’t going to waste my time. So I swiftly put in my application and waited for my next pay check to reflect the advance cash loan from the company.

What I got instead was a call from the accountant. He sat me down and asked me a number of questions on why I needed the advance cash loan. I tried to come up with some excuses (you must understand that I wasn’t prepared to be grilled!) but they all sounded futile even to my ears. I had no real reason to ask for the advance cash loan except for the fact that it was possible to ask for and get it. When I confessed to the accountant that I needed the advance cash loan to pay off my credit card debts, he sighed, looked askance at me and gave me a talking to I’ll never forget.

First and foremost, he told me that an advance cash loan was meant for emergencies. He explained that not all of us have nearly as much savings as we would like to have and we all needed an advance cash loan now and then to help us with sudden and unexpected outflows. These could include a ceremony or death in the family, school expenses, sudden hospitalization expenses and the like. Advance cash loans were not there to be availed whenever required for a whim as they could negatively impact the regularity of the salary. He then told me about the case of one other employee (he never named him!) who had made a practice of seeking advance cash loans on his salary to such an extent that he actually would not be paid a salary for another three months because that much had already been advanced to him. So now, rather than having to make do with what he got, he would be putting in three months or more of hard work for money to pay off his advance cash loan! That shook me up and I resolved then and there that I would never seek an advance cash loan unless I really required it!