Could You REALLY Pay Off this 3-Month Payday Loan in 3 Months

Could You REALLY Pay Off this 3-Month Payday Loan in 3 Months Could You REALLY Pay Off a 3-Month Payday Loan in 3 Months? Could You REALLY Pay Off a 3-Month Payday Loan in 3 Months?Sure, a longer payday loan means more time to pay the loan off, but it also means higher costsâ€"with no additional benefits.One of the biggest problems with payday loans is their incredibly short payment terms. With an average term of only two weeks, it can quite hard for most folks to pay the loan off on-time.But recently some payday lenders have  sought to offer payday loans with slightly longer terms, like three months. So are these a safer bet?Lets do some math.In order to figure out the cost of a three-month payday loan, youll need a loan calculator. Since we haven’t perfected our loan calculator technology yet, we used this one.Youll also have to know how much youre borrowing,  and its APR, or annual percentage rate. The APR measures how much a loan would cost you in fees and interest over the course of a full year. Its a standard measure that lets you make an apples to apples  cost comparison between loans.Many pay day loans have APRs as high as 400 percent (and some have APRS that are, gulp, way  higher). But for now, we’ll use 300 percent as our APR, and well use $1,000 for our loan amount.If you take out a $1,000 payday loan at a 300 percent  APR, you’ll need to pay back $1,536.90 at the end of three months.So, is that realistic? Maybe. Three months to pay back $1,536.90 works out to a rate of $128.08 a week. But while those numbers might  seem  reasonable, the reality is something altogether different.Paying off a 3-month payday loan in one lump sum is hard.When it comes to loans, longer payment terms are almost always better. Longer terms mean more manageable payments and more opportunities to improve your credit score by making said payments on time.And, hey, if youre able to pay the loan off early, thats great! Youll save money on interest.But with a three-month payday loan,  all these benefits might be totally absent. First off, there are the more manageable payments, which a payda y loan is unlikely to have.Unlike installment loans, which break your repayment up into a series of smaller payments, payday loans generally rely on lump-sum repayment, which means that you pay the loan off all at once.Studies have shown that people have a hard time paying their payday loans back on time, and lump sum repayment is a huge factor. Paying a loan off in small chunks is much easier for them than saving up the money to pay off the entire balance.In other words, saving up$1,536.90 over three months is a lot harder than only paying $128.08 once every week.You cant save you money by paying off a 3-month payday loan early.Next,  theres paying your loan off early to save interest. This wont work with most payday loans and cash advances, as their fees and interest are charged at a flat rate.  That means the interest doesnt accrue on your balance over-time. Instead, it is calculated up-front and immediately added to your repayment amount.When interest is being charged as a flat- rate, early repayment doesnt earn you any discounts or added bonuses. Well, okay, it  does  get you out debt, which is pretty nifty. But if youre going to take out a loan, you want one that can benefit your finances in the long-term.Even leaving out their sky-high interest rates, payday loans offer very little in way of long-term benefits.A 3-month payday loan wont help your credit.Lastly,  there are the opportunities to improve your credit score. Even if a payday lender  were to report your payments to the credit bureaus, paying the loan off in one payment would have a smaller positive effect on your score than paying it off in multiple installments.But thats pretty much a moot point, as payday lenders very rarely report any payment information at all. This is pretty standard for most no credit check loans and bad credit loans. (OppLoans, on the other hand,  does  report to credit bureaus.)Installment loans provide a better alternative.Since coming up with $1,500 all at once is too big an ask for most people, you’ll probably better off getting an installment loan. Thats a loan that lets you pay back your loan a little bit at a time in series of smaller, regularly scheduled paymentseach of which goes towards both the interest  and  the principal loan amount,Ideally, you want a  lender who performs a soft credit check and genuinely cares about your ability to repay the loan. Whilst this might sound funny, some predatory lenders out there rely on their customers being unable to pay their loan back on time.The more those customers roll their loan over and extend the payment terms, the more money these lenders stand to make. You want a lender  whose loans are designed to be paid off the first time, not the fifth.To learn more about the negative impacts of payday loans, check out these related posts and articles from OppLoans:5 Alarming Payday Loan StatisticsPayday Loan Rollover: How Short-Term Loans Turn Into Long-Term DebtWhat’s Worse: An Overdraft Fee or A Payday Loan?Do you think three-month payday loans are harder or easier to pay off than two-week loans? We want to hear about it!  You can  email us  or you can find us on  Facebook  and  Twitter.