When your rent is due on the first of the month, you can either pay it or risk being evicted. If the roof starts leaking, you can either choose to call a roofing company to fix it or live in a flooded home. What are some of your options when you need to make money in a hurry to handle an emergency expense?
Get a Title Loan
Auto title loans in Orlando and elsewhere can help you get the money that you need in a hurry without paying too much in fees and interest. Auto title loans are available to everyone who has sufficient equity in a vehicle that they own. You keep the vehicle until the loan is repaid, and once it has been repaid, the lender takes its lien off the title.
Take Extra Shifts at Work
If you have a little extra time to pay your looming or emergency expense, you may want to consider taking extra shifts at work. Some employers will pay you more per hour to stay later or take hours from another employee. You may also be entitled to overtime, which is 150 percent of your pay rate when you work more than 40 hours in a week. As long as your employer is alright with the arrangement, you may be able to pay off that expense in as little as a week or two.
Ask Your Employer for an Advance
For those who truly need the money in a hurry, it may be possible to ask for an advance on your salary. This may allow you to get the money that you need and then work off the debt instead of hoping that you get the hours needed to pay for a new roof or that car repair.
Take a Loan From a Retirement Account
While this may hurt your ability to save for your retirement, you may be able to access the money with no credit check and without penalty. This may be true if you are paying medical expenses that are more than 7.5 percent of your income or if you are making direct payments to a college to pay tuition expenses. Those who are over the age of 59 1/2 or who have money in a Roth IRA or 401K can take money out without penalty to cover almost any bill.
Change Your Investment Strategy
If you have an investment portfolio, it may be a good idea to adjust your strategy to achieve as much growth as possible over the short-term. This may provide you with enough cash to pay your bill without having to resort to a loan or other drastic actions. Once you have the money that you need, you can go back to your preferred method of investing to ensure that you don’t deviate from your long-term strategy.
Unexpected expenses may cut into your savings or cause other financial problems now and in the future if you don’t have a plan to deal with them. The good news is that you can leverage assets to make money quickly and pay that bill without going too far into debt. Leveraging assets may also make sense if working extra shifts alone won’t help you pay the bill in a timely manner.