Pawn shop basics

When you need cash, one of the options you have is to go to a pawn shop. Using a pawn shop is sometimes a better option than, let’s say, a payday loan (USA Loans Near Me, Inc). You may be able to get cash at a pawn shop for less in terms of fees than you would from a payday lender. In fact, many pawn shops today have payday loan capabilities on site, so you really can compare the two intelligently.

How does a pawn shop work?

A pawnshop lends money to its customers based on items of value that the customer brings in. The items are typically things that hold their value over time, and are relatively easy to store. The customer provides this collateral in order to secure a loan.

The lender then gives the customer a loan. Interest rates will vary from one state to the next, and from one borrower to the next. In general, the interest rate at a pawn shop will be higher than you might be able to get from a bank on a personal loan, but will usually be less than what it is for a payday loan.

How much will a pawn shop loan?

Most of the time, a pawn shop loan is small. They average about $80. Some pawn shops will lend as little as $20 or as much as $1,000 or more, depending on the collateral that the customer brings in. In most cases, a pawn shop won’t do a credit check on the customer, but if they do then that will also affect the amount of money they’re willing to lend.

How long does a pawn shop loan last?

The average length of a pawn shop loan is about 30 days. This can vary from one state to the next, as well. A pawn shop loan is typically longer than the 14-day average of a payday loan, but much less than the time frames of bank loans, which are usually a year or longer.

What happens if the loan isn’t paid?

Vinnie and his two goons will find you and make you pay.

Of course, that’s not true at all. That’s just what happens in the movies. In the real world, the item that the customer brought in as collateral just becomes the property of the pawn shop. The customer has a certain amount of time to try to pay back the loan once it’s overdue. That period varies from one state to the next (learn more about payday loans in NC), too, but is usually between one and three months.

Wisconsin payday loan lobbyist dates legislator

According to payday loan info, currently twelve states prohibit payday loans. Four states permit payday loans but with lower rates and more oversight than normal. Twenty eight states allow payday loans with various regulations for rate caps. However, Wisconsin is one of six states which do not set a rate cap for its lenders.

Rate Caps Proposed

Currently Wisconsin has over 500 licensed payday lenders. Recently, the state assembly tried to place an interest rate cap of 36% on payday loans. The Assembly speaker Mike Douglas C. last fall said a proposal to cap the interest rates on payday interest loans “could kill the industry and cost jobs,” as reported in WKOW27 news in Janesville, WI, this week.

Dating a Lobbyist

However, Mr. Douglas C. has admitted dating a registered lobbyist for Cincinnati based Check’N Go. The lobbyist, Shanna Wycoff, works for a firm that sells pre-paid debit cards at Check’N Go locations throughout the state.

The executive director of the political watchdog group, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, questioned whether this dating relationship suggested an appearance of a conflict of interest.

No Improprieties

Douglas states he keeps his personal life separate from his legislative work. “I would never do anything that would impact the work I do in the state assembly,” said Douglas C. He also said he didn’t accept any gifts from any payday loan lobbyist.

Douglas C. suggested that a group of lawmakers were working to put together compromise legislation that would place some controls over payday lenders. “It’s important to get this done, and that’s my number one goal,” he said.

Good points all, and this time next month, we may have to

This particular job had quite a few drawbacks, beyond the salary. The only pluses were it was a job, and pushed all DH’s blue buttons (he is a blue, if you’ve ever read Taylor Hartmann’s book The Color Code.)

The drawbacks beyond salary included:

1. no medical insurance for the family, just DH. At $50k, we would lose medical from the county, and could not afford $500/month to insure the rest of us.

2. no money left over for food. i mean ZERO. while I could adapt, it would not be a pleasant experience and we would lose assistance from the county as well.

3. 75 mile per day commute. Given the only distance roadworthy vehicle we have, this translates to about $100/week + in gas, and probably twice that, because DH would run air conditioning both ways which cuts our gas mileage in about half.

In hindsight, should he have taken the first $50k a year job he was offered 4 months ago? Maybe. We would still have had money in the bank in case that job fell through, although it would have meant future unemployment would drop about $700 a month (right now, DH maxes out.)

So far, this is like the 4th or 5th $50k a year job he has turned down, so they are out there. We don’t expect he will make the kind of money he was making, even at The Rival Firm. He does not want to accept a job and keep looking, as he feels (IMO wrongly) that it is disloyal. If it had even been $60k, we’d have gone for it because it would at least have taken care of gas & medical.

We will keep applying and hoping things work out the way they are supposed to. One never knows. They may turn around and re-offer him $60k in which case he will be back gainfully employed.

Oh, yeah..

I took a $19,000 pay cut with this job, from $74,000 to $55,000. And this was the best job I could FIND. Most were $30,000 to $40,000. Now granted, if I had a Bachelors degree or higher, I may have been able to qualify for a better job. But I don’t. And since this job just *barely* pays my bills, I can’t afford go back to school right now. But it *is* a job, and I can keep my house(for now). So, I’ll keep stumbling along…

When dh and ds lost their jobs in 2015

they went from being a “there is a shortage” to “there is an over abundance” type of employees. You all know how long they were unemployed. When both got back to work they each had to take a 25% cut in pay from what they had been previously making, with fewer benefits. Neither is back to that original salary yet. Even with the good pay raises they’ve received. Add to that the cost of taxes and insurance has gone up and both are still making about 75% bring home of what they were in 2015 and trust me groceries, utilities and such have NOT gone down. Only our debt has gone down.
But guess what, we adjusted, we adapted, and we are moving on. If either of them had said they would “wait” most likely neither of them would be working in their preferred field right now. There is still a glut of designer/drafters in a limited market.
Unemployment runs out, Cobra runs out, like you said, a cut in pay is better than “Do you want fries with that.”

When I was laid off from my software developer position in January 2016

the hardest thing for me and everyone else in my circle to accept, was that those jobs were simply gone at that pay rate. It wasn’t that I needed to go “pound the pavement” more, or put out more resumes. The jobs market had simply changed, and my job was one of the holdouts from a previous “money is no object” economy. Of all the dozens of people I knew in my general line of work, I don’t know a single one of them who’s in the same line of work, at the same rate they made even five years ago, let alone what should have been steady yearly increases to cover cost-of-living increases.

Long story short, your DH may be reaching for a salary that no longer exists, regardless of his experience, training, skills, whatever. That’s not a reflection on him; that’s a reflection of The New Normal. If that position was a job he wanted and it met the other criteria you both had in terms of commute time, etc, and the only issue was the income, I’d still take it. Beats the heck out of asking “would you like fries with that?” And it definitely beats out those unemployment checks, which will eventually dry up. Fifty thousand dollars would give you a heckuva lot more than the $100 you’re short each month. And if by some miracle that better salary comes along, THEN he can grab it. But holding out for it? Might be a long wait for a train that ain’t comin’.

Wow – sorry you’ve had problems with Craigslist

All of my experiences have been pretty good… You can do ebay, but specify local pickup. Granted, that will lower the number of potential buyers, but any local sales method will do that. If you want to get an idea of how much shipping to far-away buyers would be, look for people selling similar stuff. You can see what they charge for shipping, and get an idea how much to charge. Then you can decide if it’s worth the hassle to ship.

I am a long-time lurker who pops in occasionally

I’ve been trying to follow LS for five years now. It’s been hard because in those five years, we’ve been laid off three times and lived in four different states. All of which made me more determined to get out of debt. We’ve been here in Ohio for two years, and have paid off a bunch of smaller credit cards, an 18-months-same-as-cash, 1000 loan and other various things. Thru this all, Husband has agreed that we needed to get out of debt, discussed the budget with me, and then ignored the whole thing.

I’ve know all along that our/Husband’s weakness, budget-wise, was eating out on the weekend. About a month ago, I asked Husband what he thought about going cash-only for eating out. HE AGREED TO GIVE IT A TRY. (Miracle #1). Friday afternoon I pulled out a normal amount of money that we might spend on the weekend. Sunday evening, HE GAVE ME HALF OF IT BACK. (Miracle #2). We’ve been doing this for about a month, and we’ve never gone over the money we pulled out. (I cut back how much I pulled out.) Then Sunday (yesterday) he mentioned that since we had used some of our cash to go see a Community Theater show, we didn’t have enough left to eat out on Sunday, so WE’LL JUST EAT AT HOME. (Miracle #3, he didn’t suggest using the debit card to replace the theater money!)

AND (one more Miracle), next weekend, we are going back to the town we lived in for 20 years, for a funeral. I told him that we could go back to the debit card because it was easier. His suggestion — PULL OUT THE CASH LIKE USUAL, AND SEE HOW FAR IT GOES!

He is finally on board!!! I can’t believe it. And in return, I have quit bugging him about any other money he spends. Just getting the eating out under control has made life so much easier, money-wise!!! And it feels good to know we’re headed in the same direction.

Question

So these same friends of ours who moved this weekend left behind a bunch of stuff they told me i could do with as i saw fit (i.e., giveaway, sell, toss). they had a bunch of trash, i took that to the dumpster. they had a bunch of stuff i freecycled as its monetary value was minimal.

but there’s quite a bit which has some decent monetary value. the problem is, they are either bulky i.e., several light stands (for photography?) or really heavy i.e., a pad printing press which will easily sell for $500, or really fragile i.e., a Nikon F4 lens.

if I sell it on ebay, I don’t even know how to box/wrap/ship some of this stuff so it won’t break. garage sale probably not a good idea (?) given the expensive items (?). I’m not a fan of Craigslist–buying or selling I’ve yet to have a single, positive experience.

Ideas?

Regarding someone checking on your dfil every day

maybe he could get one of those LifeLine (sp?) services. He would wear a button on a cord around his neck and press it if he needed help. The monitoring service talks to him through a tabletop unit that’s connected to a phone line and can send help if needed. My dad uses one of these, and it’s a tremendous load off my mind to know that he could summon help if something happened. His service is set up through the Visiting Nurses Association in his city. I believe the service costs around $25/month.

Reading later messages — Kathryn, maybe this would help your parents as well?

Remember the friends of mine whose “elderly”

(67ish year old, stage 4 cancer survivor) husband was fired from his recently-reclassed-to-a-physically-demanding job from his 20 year desk job after he came back after cancer surgery? I helped them fight his ex-employer with the state and got him unemployment benefits. I asked here about Social Security, unemployment etc. Given his age and health, it is unlikely he will ever work for an employer again.
Anyway. They had no savings with only unemployment and Social Security. We went through TMMO together (this would be last fall, before he was fired) and they were supposedly on board, then he got fired, but when he filed for SS, decided that was a windfall and spent nearly $4k ON CHRISTMAS for their ADULT kids (they had 1 17yo at the house.) This is germane because of where they are at now.
Anyway….they put their house up for sale back in the fall, but didn’t really want to move since it was DS17’s senior year, so they took it off after 3 months.
Made a couple of trips out of state, decided in April (?) they had found the “perfect” $250k house in the middle of nowhere Utah, put an offer on it for full list which was accepted (THERE’S a real surprise) contingent on their selling their house here in CA which just sold & closed a few days ago. They moved this weekend (just arrived in Utah today.)
So the GOOD news is, they sold their house, paid off that mortgage and after realtor fees etc had enough left over to pay cash for the new house, so it’s mortgage free, with about $30-40k left over which “should” pay off all their credit cards, cars, etc. plus pay for their move. That would only leave them with about $30k left on a repossessed RV they turned back to the loan company.
Here’s what’s germane to this blog: it’s never the money, it’s ALWAYS the attitude.
This is a family who ought to be looking pretty decent financially. They are mortgage free, ought to be CC debt free since they have the $ to pay everything off, and still have enough that they could negotiate a steep discount on that RV repo.
Do I think they’ll do it? Not a chance.
I think they’ll spend that $20, 30, 40k furnishing the new place so it can be a showcase, not be able to keep up with minimum CC pmts on his SS income, start borrowing against the house (I’m sure they’ll find some banker willing to give them a HELOC against a mortgage free house) and a year or two from now, will be right back where they were this past fall.
It’s really sad and I truly hope I am VERY wrong. The “magic” of DR isn’t the math or even the method. It is the ATTITUDE change which comes when you work the baby steps, realizing that it’s really OKAY to be debt free. My mother does the same thing these two do…she has paid off her house THREE TIMES…and within a year after each, has refinanced to “remodel” or whatever her current craze is.
You can lead them to water, but only they can decide to drink. I vociferously wish them the best, and maybe after the dust settles, they will decide they are better off being debt free than living in a showcase.

we’ll be hanging out at the house most of the day–me, dh and 2 kids

swimming in the pool and grilling burgers.

The neighborhood across the street had their firework show last Saturday night. so if we see any fireworks it will be what the neighbors purchased.

I have 1 kid that will go to the beach early and leave early–there were riots Memorial day weekend that shut Jacksonville beach down from about 5-midnight.

1 kid works all day and will go to her bf’s club for fireworks and cookout.

I do miss the DC fireworks, I could watch them from my apt building when I lived in Silver Spring, MD

I live in Washington (the STATE)

and our neighborhood has a pancake breakfast that runs until 11 am. we just drop in when we want. Then at 5 is a HUGE neighborhood BBQ where we invite friends that don’t even live in the the cul-d-sac. We never buy fireworks, but if we have money we contribute to the “show”. It usually starts at 9:45 or so and lasts until 11.

What are you doing tomorrow for the fourth?

We cash flowed the cost so the plan is to buy some fireworks and get together with our neighbors / family to light off in our court. Depending on when we light up, we may also catch the show on PBS with the fireworks on the Mall (we live in VA and prior to kids would always go downtown but these days I prefer to stay home and do our own thing).
I’ve also downloaded patriotic tunes to my ipod and will play as we set off the fireworks.
We have a three year old who I imagine will do great and a 16 mo who most likely will be asleep and if not, he will be attached to my hip. We call him Tick Boy. 🙂
What are you all doing for the fourth and where are you located?