Much of the chatter was spurred by the Ohio legal efforts to limit those services. Various people who represent the payday lending industry were offended that a Michigan blogger dared to discuss the headlines in Ohio. Those critics obviously did not realize the city of Monroe, where this blog is based, is only 15 miles from the Ohio-Michigan line and a lot of Monroe County residents work and shop in Toledo, watch Toledo TV and read a Toledo newspaper.

Besides, if you trace my archives all the way through that topic, you’ll see that I concluded if military families can get by without payday lending services, so can the civilian families.

Now, today’s example of a bad sales pitch was a comment on my blog tagged to a free root beer float post for a promotion that is now expired. Spam alert: a root beer float has nothing at all to do payday loans.

Not only is this a bad sales pitch as far as content, but the writer can’t even spell. I’ll leave that “byline” on as it was posted, but I’m taking out the business links. If payday lenders want an ad on my blog – they can pay my sponsor, Monroe Publishing Co., for the privilege.

After you read that sales pitch, I will have more appropriate tips on tips on how to handle charity appeals on a budget.

Several Ways How To Find The Money For Charity Using Payday Loans

By: Tom Manilla

It feels good to be gwenerous and help others. This is especially true in these tough economic times. No matter how rough you have it, there are always people out there who have it worse than you do, and you want to help them out if you can.

A rpoblem occurs when your desire to be generous to a good cause meets a temporary lack of funds. You don’t want to miss the chance to donate at a sppecial benefiut dinmner, or the oportunity to help a relative who is really struggling to get by. A payday cash advance loan can be the soltuion to your tremporary cash crunch.

These loans are often misundrestood, but they really do fit a need in the market. Banks have enougfh problems right now with the housing market, so they can’t be bthered to listen to you if you come in wanrting a small personal loan. You don’t want to ask your family and friends for the mney either—especilly since half the time it’s your family and friend s that you are tryig to help!

When you work with a paayday lender, you work with a professional srevice that will keep your loan confidential. You can give and be thught of as generous, without anyone needing to know that you borrowwed money to make it happen this time. It can allow you to maintain your reputation as a supporter of good causes witthout starting gossip about the tsate of your personal finances in the way that borrowing from friends or family might do.

Furthher preserving your personal privacy and public image, many payady lenders have online applications, so you don’t need to go to a physical location to get the money you want to give to your cauise. You can fill everrything out and submit it oline, on your own schedule instead of needing to get everything done during regular office hours. The online application can be processed in minutes and you can have your funds the next day.

You can even completely automate the repaymebnt process. You can set up automatic repyment in full or in a sereies of payments debitted from your bank account. It makes the whole process that much simpler and hassle free.

The net ressult is that you get to give to whom you chose and when you cohose. You don’t have to be limted by having overspent earlier in the motnh. You can still support the causes that mean the most to you.

When the hat is passed for an accident victim, or a benefdit dinneer is scheduled for a house fire victim, you can pony up withoiut having to worry that you won’t be able to pay other bills as a result of your genersity. Insetad, you can give with a happy hart to thoe who really need your help and not worry a bit. You will find that payyday lenders make the whole process easy and that you don’t need to fret over a small cash crunch getting in the way.

I’ve been discussing ways to contribute to charity on a budget since this blog was launched in January 2007. You’ll find lots of tips in my archives under “charities and donations.” Some of the talking points include:

• Include charities and donations as a budget item in your household finances. I know many people are taught, or follow, a tithe rule where the charity money comes off the household budget before any other money is spent. I have never followed a 10 percent tithe myself, but I do know to expect and prepare for charity appeals. I was able to buy a school fundraiser candy bar yesterday because I had a dollar bill in my wallet.
• Clip and save those General Mills Box Tops, Yoplait pink labels and Campbell’s food labels. Find a school, club or non-profit group that is running such a campaign and let them have your proof of purchase points. I split up my collection of Box Tops among my three sisters and their school-age children. One family’s contributions alone won’t be much – these programs only raise a lot of money when a lot of people contribute.
• Buy retail gift cards and gift certificates from fundraiser programs. Several churches and schools in Monroe County, Mich., sell the grocery and other retail cards at face value and get a percentage of the sales. I know darn well that some of the gift cards I’ve received as thank-you and Christmas presents came from a fundraiser program. That’s fine by me. But the real money is to be made when families run as much of their everyday expenses as possible through the gift card fundraisers. How much could your school earn if even half of the students’ families put their grocery money on a fundraiser card?
• Clip, sort and save coupons for food pantry and donation-friendly items. Let’s say toothpaste goes on sale for $1 each and you’ve saved the coupons that result in free toothpaste when you bundle coupons with the sale. This doesn’t happen every week or even every month. But it does happen frequently enough you should consider the possibility. Now buy that free toothpaste, set aside one or two boxes for your own family, put the rest in a donation box.
• Eat at the fundraiser breakfasts and dinners. The statistics I’ve seen for the number of times a week that Americans eat out are pretty shocking. I’d love to track that number down to its original study – but, you’ve seen them too. Did it occur to you that there are dozens of fundraiser breakfasts, soup luncheons, celebrity server nights, roast beef dinners and fish fries every month in Monroe County, Mich.? I am the reporter who gets those events listed in The Monroe Evening News and on the MonroeTalks calendar. Start directing some of your fast food and dinner out money to those events.
• Plan ahead for the bake sales. I’m not noticing as many bake sales these days, but this is an easy fundraiser tactic to deal with. Look through your recipe collection and bookmark or tag the foods that make good bake sale items on a budget so you can find those recipes in a hurry. Then as you see baking supplies go on sale (hint: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter), stock up on frequently used items such as cake mix or nuts.
• Be realistic when you are the one coordinating fundraisers or group gift appeals. Decide what you are going to purchase or do with the funds AFTER you find out what everyone is able to contribute. One way to do it in a confidential matter is ask people to contribute whatever amount they feel they are able to support. Don’t set your budget at XX amount per person. Even a $10 cash gift request can upset someone who is wondering how to get his own car repaired.
• If you have no funds available, send your good wishes and prayers. This won’t cost anything out of your pocket. Besides, with unemployment more than 17 percent in Monroe County, those fundraiser committees know darn well that a lot of people have to say “no” right now to a cash request.

You set aside money for such things. Even one week’s paycheck left alone in a savings account will be enough to get you through many unexpected but inexpensive situations – the kind that send some families running to a payday lender.

Trent at the Simple Dollar has this post: A step-by-step guide to building a big, healthy emergency fund.

A snippet:

So, what’s the first step? Many people bite off a gigantic goal for their emergency fund right off the bat and then find that it’s very hard to get there. Eight months of living expenses is an enormous goal, one that will take years to reach – and along the way, you’re bound to get disheartened.

Instead, one great way to start is to set a goal that’s more reasonable. Make it your initial goal to have an emergency fund of just $250 or $500. That’s a goal that you can reach in just a few months (or even less if you’re in a good income situation) and yet it’s an amount that can make a huge difference when you have an emergency.

Then, break that goal down into smaller pieces. Perhaps you can save $25 a week. If that’s the case, you can have a $250 emergency fund in just ten weeks, so you can set that as your overall goal. Maybe you can put away $40 a week, which would bring you to the $500 goal in three months.

My advice is to not set your savings plan too high at first, either in terms of the amount you can save each week or the overall amount. It should challenge you just a bit, but not be a number that’s simply unreachable.

And then he’s got some suggestions on how to cut back on daily expenses so to free up cash for that emergency fund.

Now, it is a fact that many money-saving steps that working class and middle-class families can take require an investment of time, money or both before you see an improvement in the long-term cash flow. Examples include: backyard gardening, drugstore rebates, and building up a pantry so you can cook at home more often.

That’s why a lot of people look at the plethora of ideas that are suggested by frugal living experts, say “Bleh! That’s not worth my time!” and stick to their more expensive lifestyle routines.

But I can’t afford to overlook opportunities that would help my family save money. Can you?

It’s been fairly common for their remarks to show up on posts that have nothing to do with payday lending.  I usually let the comments die in the spam queue. I have let them talk if they stay on topic, specifically the “payday loan” topics. If it’s off topic, it’s gone.

Now, on a couple of occasions, I have rescued particularly interesting comments from the payday lending industry out of my spam queue. This one arrived Wednesday. I do not make this up:

Saving money is something worthy to do. There are lots of things and way it can help to people. It’s like treasuring something that will surely help you in times of so much distress. In response to the recession, a lot of people are finding ways to save money. A lot of companies are too. For instance, Gannett Inc, a company that owns several newspapers, was faced with potentially having to lay off works, but instead decided to give everybody a week of required unpaid leave. That would usually seem a little bit sly, but the truth is they decided to do that so that their employees could keep their jobs. The employees may miss some work and a week’s pay, but they can get payday loans to make up for the loss. There are all kinds of examples of money saving tips out there.

For those who don’t know my career history, I am a Gannett alumni. I worked for 13 years at Gannett newspapers in Ohio before I came to The Monroe Evening News in 2000. And I have been paying very close attention to the newspaper industry blogs, headlines and web sites.

Gannett owns quite a bit more than “several newspapers” where employees have been given layoff notices. My local readers also are aware about the dramatic changes pending for distribution and delivery of The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.

I do not recommend payday loans for someone who is losing their job, on layoff or taking a short-term unpaid furlough. If the problem is less income, a payday loan will not solve it.

I especially don’t recommend payday loans for my laid-off colleagues in the news media who will find it difficult to find comparable work at comparable pay, particularly the journalists at community newspapers who have traditionally worked for modest incomes while raising their families in small-town America.

For anyone who is dealing with less income than before, for any reason, I recommend cutting back on household expenses through frugal living.

Do you need practical tips on how to make frugal living part of your long-range household budget? Read my series The Downsized Budget: How and Where to Cut Back.

Do you need instruction on what to do in the short term? Read Drastic frugality, or what to do when the money runs out.

Yes, those posts, along with others on Monroe on a Budget are written for those who live in Monroe County, Michigan. That’s my spin on frugality, and I’m sticking to it.

But my national readers can look for similar opportunities, programs and services in their communities.

• Studenomics presents Are you cash strapped just before the holidays?: “Nobody wants to get rid of their cable. However, drastic times call for drastic measures.” In the Monroe area, this is not so bad. You’ll be able to pick up broadcast channels from both Detroit and Toledo. Just make sure you have that digital TV converter box before February.
• PennyJobs presents What can I cut back on? “If you have not done so, I think everyone should begin preparing for the coming recession.” The recession is already here in Michigan – and getting worse. It’s time to be frugal with your money.
• Monagamoney presents Five things to do if you get laid off. “Don’t wait to apply for jobs that are slightly different from the one you were doing before.” You may end up with a job that is WAY different than you did before. It’s a paycheck. Take it. You can look for other opportunities while you are at least earning some dough.
• My Family’s Money presents Pay day loans and the elections. “Instead of charging these people up the whazoo, we should be seeking to educate them and help them overcome the economic disadvantages that have created the situation that makes legal loan sharking necessary.” You can follow my post and some very lengthy comment rolls on this topic at my archives. I figured if the military families could learn to do without that service, so could the civilian families. After all, the military families have a lot more emergency expenses to worry about in addition to the routine household details that everyone else does.
• Monroe on a Budget presents 70-plus practical Christmas gifts. “They’ll either save you from making a purchase later out of your household budget, or save you money in the long run.” It’s a popular thing to save money these days.

The Festival of Frugality for Dec. 2 was hosted by Living Almost Large. Here are some of the posts you’ll find on frugal living concepts:

• Ask Mr. Credit Card presents Extreme Christmas Shopping. “Find an item that you want, and use your coupon or rebate code. If you don’t have a coupon code, then search for one on Google, or at least get free shipping.” I keep my coupon code postcards along with other coupon books in a manila envelope – ready for my next shopping trip.
• The Smarter Wallet presents Quality cookware to save you time and energy. “My bread machine keeps my family fed, too. Each week, I make my own pizza dough and bread.” This gadget sounds like a great idea. I do use my slowcooker, electric grill and electric fry pan frequently.
• How To Me presents How to sew a simple purse, tote or bag. “This might just be the fastest and easiest sewing project that I’ve completed in months. It took less than an hour from the first cut to the last stitch.” If you’re looking for a project to start with as a sewing beginner, this looks like a good one.

The Toledo Blade reports today that New payday loan products are reaction to vote, 79 Ohio sites to close.

A snippet:

As expected, some in the so-called payday loan industry have announced they will close a combined 79 stores in Ohio after the passage of a state ballot issue that meant payday loan interest rates were capped at 28 percent.

But several lenders, including those that will close stores, are launching new types of loans that carry origination fees. Others will focus on other services to maintain revenues.

Check through the Monroe on a Budget archives under keyword payday loans for previous posts on this topic. There have some pretty interesting discussions in recent weeks on the comment boards.

Much of the discussion was fueled by an Ohio ballot issue that sought to restrict payday lending. That ballot issue passed Tuesday. However, I actually started posting about that topic when payday loan restrictions got invoked for military families several months earlier. I figured if the military families could learn how to do without such a service, so could the civilian families.

It became pretty obvious as the Ohio debates heated up that my blog was closely watched by some of those who make a living off payday loans.

I decided to let the payday lending industry and their supporters post away – but only on threads that are “on topic.” I also am removing their business links from the posts. (Payday lenders can purchase an on-line advertising spot from the Monroe Publishing Co. if they want to, but I’m not going to let them use my comment boards as free advertising.)

It’s been an interesting discussion.

This morning I read the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard for a payday loan.

Check out the thread on this post, Payday lenders are linking to my boards again, and scroll down to where the discussion goes into Halloween candy.

Details posted at Cleveland.com and at WTVG 13 in Toledo.

Over the past few months, payday lending has resulted in more comments and heated discussion than any other thread at Monroe on a Budget.

Update: here’s a snippet from the Columbus Dispatch story:

With Issue 5, payday lenders tried to partially overturn House Bill 545, which will lower the interest rate on payday loans from the current 391 percent ($15 per $100 on a two-week loan) to 28 percent. It also limits the number of the short-term loans a borrower can get in a given year.

Payday lenders, in a coalition called Ohioans for Financial Freedom, spent more than $16 million to gather signatures and seek a no vote on the issue, outspending opponents by more than 60-to-1.

Bill Faith, leader of the Vote Yes on 5 committee, said groups such as churches, unions and other organizations helped get the word out.

A snippet:

The conventional definition of a budget is a financial plan that includes your income and details everything you spend your money on. A balanced budget is a spending plan that does not exceed your income. A wise budget is a spending plan that also includes additional items, such as savings for emergencies, charitable giving, retirement, children’s educations, large purchases, etc., and still does not exceed your income.

What happens when the income doesn’t go as far as you want?

A lot of us in southeast Michigan are having to figure that out real quick.

Nope, a payday loan won’t dig you out of that hole.

I blog from Monroe, Mich., which any first-time reader can figure out either from my blog description or my “about” page.

It is not obvious to some of the out-of-town blog readers that Monroe County, Mich., is just north of Toledo, Ohio, and therefore it is quite common for Monroe County residents to drive into Ohio to work, shop or run errands. So depending on the topic, Ohio headlines are indeed quite relevant to my local readers.

I also had lived in Ohio for many years.

And when I was a financially struggling single / divorced parent in northwest Ohio in the early 1990s, there was no such thing as payday lending stores. I had to wait until payday if I couldn’t figure out any other means of handling an expense.

In recent years, the payday lending industry has grown – and so has the controversy of those services. While Michigan currently allows payday loans, Ohio has been taking steps to restrict them.

But Ohio’s legal battle is not what got my attention.

It’s when the military decided to restrict those services to any family that is on its payroll.

My ex-husband serves in the military, and for a time I was an Army wife who relied on the military paycheck to pay the bills.

The explanation that the military gave for its decision to keep its employees and dependents out of certain specific financial services made perfect sense to me. If you search through the Monroe on a Budget archives on payday loans, you’ll find I jumped into the discussion quite some time before the Ohio legal battle erupted in the news media. (See “Hey Ohio! Uncle Sam already restricts payday loans.”)

As the controversy continues, several Ohio payday lending industry representatives and supporters have been commenting and linking to my boards. Several have complained that since I am a Michigan blogger, I have no business blogging about Ohio business. My response to those people is: look at the map. Monroe County does have significant economic ties to northwest Ohio.

Other critics have (laughingly) assumed that since I work for the news media, I have never lived paycheck to paycheck or wondered how I would pay the bills. My single parent story alone should be enough to shut down that argument. I worked full-time as a newspaper reporter in those days.

I still work for a newspaper now. I’m at The Monroe Evening News, which is an employee-owned newspaper. And my husband, who once had an enjoyable although low-paying, job at a radio station, now works at an auto supplier because it was the only place he could find a “permanent” job rather than continue to ride the temporary employment roller coaster.

Have you paid any attention to the national and regional headlines about the newspaper industry and the automotive industry?

Yeah, I know what I’m talking about when it comes to tight finances.

I did have to shut down a previous comment thread on payday loans because I would be out of the office for a couple of days and didn’t have a way to keep up with a fast-moving discussion. I did promise to re-open the topic if people wanted to keep talking.

Here’s a comment that landed today on a completely irrelevant post – so instead of letting it sit there I am posting the comment here:

House Bill 545 has taken comfort in the mind of Ohio’s governor, Ted Strickland. He is on the move to convince people in his state to vote in favor of the bill. Ignoring the voice of the people earlier this year, this bill will put a cap on the annual interest rates that no fax payday loan companies can charge to 36 percent. Now let’s review this situation in a bigger picture. This would mean the payday loan industry will make virtually no money at all, which will eventually drive the whole industry out of the state. No company can survive under these conditions.

To make matters worse, presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has vowed to impose Strickland’s interest rate cap nationally. This will mean that people will have fewer options making ends meet in tough times. If this bill should be passed, what then do they offer the people in return when life throws one of its little surprises? Before casting your vote, think about the dreadful consequences.

Post Courtesy of Personal Money Store
Professional Blogging Team
Feed Back: 1-866-641-3406
Home: http://personalmoneystore.com/NoFaxPaydayLoans.html
Blog: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/

Anybody want to chime in?

In the meantime, if you live in southeast Michigan, keep looking through my blogroll and links for resources, tips and ideas on how to make that paycheck stretch.

Don’t be surprised if you see your blogger with her coupon box at the grocery store, waiting in line for an Angel Food Ministries box, or shopping for a pair of work pants at Monroe Thrift Shop.

If you happen to stop by my home for a cup of coffee, you’d see one of the tiniest homes in our city neighborhood because it was the best my husband and I could afford.

You’d see an unfinished basement that would have been done a year ago except property values in Monroe have fallen so much we have no home equity, a video game system that was “new” in 2001, kitchen dishes that were “purchased” through years of birthday and Christmas gifts from the other women in my family, a couch that is 15 years old, and a laptop computer that your blogger got as a hand-me-down from her father.

And where is the daughter? She’s at college on a combination of scholarships, need-based grants, subsidized loans, her summer job earnings and work-study.

The payday lending industry would argue that my family is the kind of household that “needs” payday loans.

My husband and I have decided we’ll do everything possible to manage our household finances except go to a payday lender.

After all, we’ve seen a lot of shorted paychecks this year when what should have been a 40-hour week turned into 32 hours. And that’s on top of a five-week layoff my husband had to go through this summer.

Given the fact that the median household income for Monroe County was $53,750 in 2007, which is a decrease from $54,444 reported for 2006, a lot of Monroe-area families are also having to figure out how to get by on less income.

A payday loan won’t solve that problem.

And for those of you who work in the payday loan industry and are panicking about your own paychecks, keep in mind that you’d probably be able to find a job at another area business if your customers could spend those payday lending fees elsewhere.

Most of our bills are due during the first two weeks of the month. In a normal payday cycle, it’s just something we plan on. Money is set aside out of previous checks to get everything cleared out.

This month, we’ve had more unpaid days off outside of a formal layoff than we’ve had in a long time. While some of those days off were expected and planned for, some unpaid days were not expected or happened on short notice, and now the timing of all that nonsense has caught up with us.

Now, I will annoy the payday loan industry (some who work in or have used that service have been paying close attention to this blog) and say a payday loan is not going to be the solution.

Regardless of my opinion on payday loans, it would be foolish of us to arrange for a payday loan when the root cause is NOT THE TIMING OF PAYCHECKS VS. BILLS — the root cause is LESS INCOME.

Many of you who live in southeast Michigan are also dealing with that situation.

Now, my husband and I have long kept about a week’s paycheck parked in his credit union account for emergencies.

To be honest, we used up that cash when he was laid off for five weeks this summer.

So what are we doing right now? We are looking at all available options.

• Number one goal is to sort out what bills are due when, and pay close attention to the due dates as compared to his and my paydays. Example: bill that is due Sept. 19 can be paid out of my Sept. 18 paycheck. Paying bills on time avoids late fees (immediate or next month’s out-of-pocket expense) and keeps the credit rating good (long range out-of-pocket expense).
• Temporarily stop unnecessary purchases. I do have craft projects that are half finished. If I don’t have all the supplies on hand to finish a project, it will be put aside for later. I recently bought needed items to finish some projects that can keep me busy for awhile anyway.
• Any needed purchase will be done as cheaply as possible. Example: I really did need to get my hair professionally cut this week. It was beyond the point where I could just keep cutting my bangs. But I took the time to go through the coupons I saved from the mail and newspapers to see where I could get the best deal. Result: I went to a salon that I don’t normally use, and I got a fabulous haircut.
• Any purchase will be reviewed for long-range impact. If I can save money in the long run, it’s worth considering. Example: purchasing the Detroit Free Press Sunday paper even though I already have seven-day home delivery of The Monroe Evening News. Now I have two coupon bundles every week to use immediately and I’m not waiting for hand-me-down coupon packets from someone else’s  subscription.
• Settling out my drugstore rebate accounts. I just filed for the Rite Aid August rebates, and double-checked my Walgreens list to make sure I had nothing pending for August.
• The drugstore rebate money I haven’t spent yet will be allocated after I take a close look at our grocery list, and review the drugstore sales fliers to see what I can get really cheap on sale + coupon and possibly later rebates.
• Planning meals as much as possible based on what’s in the house already. There’s little to worry about here – with the help of Angel Food Ministries bulk purchase program and my stock-up purchases during previous grocery sales, we have plenty of food in the house. Again, whatever I do need to restock will be arranged for after I read all the sales fliers.
• Staying on top of my Flexible Spending Account reimbursement program for medical bills. A couple of days ago, I faxed an Explanation of Benefits for a co-pay on a doctor visit to my FSA company. By the time the doctor bill arrives in the mail, I’ll have the FSA reimbursement in hand. I also found about $11 worth of receipts in my bookkeeping box yesterday for FSA-eligible over-the-counter medications. I’m faxing those ASAP.
• Pay close attention to what account we can use to pay for what service or product. Example: we normally put our gasoline purchases on the BP card to pay in full once a month, rather than fritter away cash during the week on gas purchases. That trick does help us with cash flow, and I need to remember to do that.

I’m sure there will be other steps we’re taking. That’s just the list I came up with during the past couple of days.