Small Cash Loans

The correct answer to this depends on many things. We provide information that will help you choose. The reason you need to make the decision yourself is because only you know your specific needs and your personal circumstances. But we can give you a checklist of things to consider that may help:

• Is there an affordable solution - is there space in your weekly/monthly budget to cover the repayments you will have to make?
• Only borrow what you really need - don't be tempted to borrow "that little bit more" even if the lender offers it to you.
• Consider the repayment period - generally the quicker you can repay a loan the lower the total cost of the debt. So, if your budget allows, try to keep the repayment period as short as you can.
• Look at the total cost of repaying the loan - the APR% can be misleading when it comes to short term loans of just a few weeks or months.
• Make sure you understand the terms & conditions before signing the agreement.

This is a tricky question to answer. We'll exclude payday advances from this comparison. In the case of the other 3 types of cash loan lets work to a shared scenario - you want to borrow £500 for 6 months. Which could be the most cost effective solution? [these are approximate costs only]

• Doorstep Loan - total amount repayable would be c.£780 made up of 26 weekly payments of £30.
• Instalment Loan - total amount repayable would be c.£850 made up of 6 monthly repayments of £140.
• Small Guarantor Loan - total amount repayable would be c.£874 made up of 6 monthly repayments of c.£146.

As you can see, in this example, the instalment loan and small guarantor loan options looks a slightly more expensive way of borrowing a small sum for a moderate time period. When you are deciding on which loan type to use you need to do the same analysis for your loan size and preferred repayment period (that keeps things affordable).

All loan providers are implementing changes to their application processes and technology to shorten the time it takes to get a loan. In reality non of these loan options is slow to get you your cash. However, getting a doorstep loan may take you a little longer (a few days) as you will need to be visited by an agent from the lender. The other types of cash loan can all get you the money the same day (and may be within a few hours) direct to your bank account, subject to your application being accepted by mid/late afternoon.

All lenders, regardless of their type of loan, have to operate responsible lending policies. There are no guarantees that a lender will lend to you if you have credit problems. However, all lenders will take enquiries from people with bad credit and assess them on their merits. This will include affordability checks.

The most "understanding" lenders are those who offer guarantor loans. These have been designed with bad credit in mind. We have plenty of information about them on our website.

If you are tight for cash much of the time then you need to think twice about borrowing money. How would you afford to repay it? You do not want to worsen a tight financial position by taking a cash loan you cannot afford to repay.

We would suggest that before you take on any debt that you look at your personal expenditure and your budget and see if there are any components you can reduce. This is much better way of releasing the cash you need - you aren't faced with interest costs and repayment deadlines.

Take a look at our guide to managing debt. After this the first thing you should do is list how much (per week or month) you spend on different things (e.g. rent, phone, food, energy, socialising, etc). When you examine this list against your income you'll immediately see what the gap is and where you might be able to save money.