God Speaks, One Consumer Listens, Cuts Down on Payday Loan Debt
By J.J. CameronPayday Loan Writer
Not everyone knows what to do about payday loans. In troubling financial times, it can be a confusing issue. Fortunately for Mitzi Rivers, somone very important gave her a clear idea of what cash loan path to take.
"I ask God how," the Wichita mother of six explains.
She believes God recently answered her question about how to climb out of a financial pit caused by payday loan use when she stumbled into a Sunflower Community Action meeting in June about payday and car title loans.
About $330 of Rivers' paycheck every two weeks was going toward paying just the fees on seven payday advances.
"A lot of it was due to the fact that some of my bills were higher - electric and gas," she said. "Then gasoline went up. I had some moving expenses. I didn't have enough money to go from one paycheck to another."
She took out her first payday loan to get over the hump.
But soon, this was her life:
- She worked overtime - on paydays she would drive around town to each lender to pay off her debts. Each time she paid off one quick cash loan, she took out another one.
- She was so exhausted on those days that after visiting the last lender on a Friday, she would go home to bed and pray.
"Lord," she said she had thought. "I need to get out of this."
And then it was so …
Rivers was driving near Tabernacle Baptist Church on June 10 and noticed a crowd. She stopped to get information about vacation Bible school. Instead, she learned about the Sunflower meeting.
Rivers met later with J.J. Selmon, community organizer for the northeast chapter of Sunflower, a Wichita grassroots group. He told her about Communities United Credit Union. Our heroine, subsequently, called the credit union to see if it could help pay off her savings account payday loans, some credit card debt and a car loan. Selmon evenwent with her to the meeting.
She and a credit union employee sat down and took a hard look at her debt. About a week later, Rivers called Selmon, ecstatic. The credit union had approved her loan! Her new monthly payment is $300 less than what she had been paying on her troublesome payday advances.
