Ever been a bit short of cash? I know I have: perhaps the rent is due tomorrow, but you don’t have it! Your insurance premium is due… Some bills are due. There is always one bill to be paid, regardless of the fact that you just paid the previous one!

One possible solution is Personal Cash Advance, a company that provides payday loans (or cash advances) for customers facing such short term cash flow problems. So what is a payday loan? Briefly, it’s a short term loan that is intended to provide applicants with a short term financing typically between $100 to $1500, until their next pay check arrives.

Such financing can be used in emergencies to cover unexpected costs and allow customers to avoid penalties for such costs as bounced checks and late payment fees. The term of such loans is usually two weeks. Customers choose payday advances to cover small, unexpected expenses while avoiding costly bounced-check fees and late payment penalties. With Personal Cash Advance you can apply for a payday loan online and have your advance electronically deposited to your checking or savings account.

For example, if your car has a break down, and you need it to be repaired to get to work, you may wish to use a small payday advance loan to avoid overcharging your credit card (perhaps the repairshop doesn’t accept credit cards!). Naturally, there are fees that are incurred before taking out such payday loans, so if you think it is likely that you will need a payday loan, it’s wise to invest a little time reading the terms of the loans BEFORE you need to.

A little research in this area before emergencies can help borrowers to decide quickly on effective solutions, rather than simply signing on the dotted line with no idea what’s in the terms of the agreement or the APR. And make sure you understand what the charges are, how much they are, and when the installments are due! Payday Loans aren’t without their problems, though. If you find that you are borrowing such loans on a revolving or frequent basis, you may need to look at why this is the case. They may in fact be making things worse, not better.

So, research, consider and decide responsibly to avoid unnecessary problems, and Payday Loans should be fine. How do you handle cash flow issues? If you’re short of cash one month, what do you do? How do you deal with the situation? Is it recurring?

Recently I just had my first car accident… and I hope my last… It was quite an experience!

We were driving on a mountain road between Tamsui and Sanchih, it’s quite an attractive road, in fact. But on weekends, all sorts of idiot city types come out on the road, and do really DUMB things. Anyway we were heading up the mountain road on a narrow twisty section of the road, when my car was hit by a car coming down the mountain at a high speed. I was too far over to the center of the road meaning that I had no safety margin at all, and the road twisted to my left, making visibility harder. In addition, it was a wide single track road… Anyway, BOOM!

You can see how the damage in these three photos quite clearly. It’s obvious from the nature of the damage that the other driver didn’t see me at all until it was too late. Poor Ed!

The funny thing about all kinds of insurance, home insurance, car insurance, and life insurance, is that you never know when you will need it! Really. That afternoon, we thought we were just going for a quiet country drive, but we didn’t know that we’d be involved in a hit and run accident. Nor did we know that the guy would stop, be a jerk and drive away afterwards. We didn’t even get his license plate number … However, we were covered for such minor damage in our policy, and it helped to cover the costs of the damage.

What should you do in a car accident? What kind of policies should you get for driving? Is third party, fire and theft really enough these days? Anyone got experience?

Being a Brit, I was aware for a long time that in Britain we used to really put up with high prices, poorer quality, lower service standards and bad attitudes from staff in stores, not to mention the weather!

Anyway, Fool UK recently published an interesting article that highlighted some of the scams that can legally relieve you of your cash… Check out the links in the article for other similar articles. Ten Infuriating Swindles by Motley Fool (UK).

Have you ever been swindled – legally – by a bank, mortgage company or credit card company?