“But I couldn’t help it”. Well, you might feel that way, but when you miss a payment, the bank or the utility company, or the landlord doesn’t care. You think that they are picking on you, or they are heartless, but the truth is you didn’t do what you promised; you said you would pay your bills on time. It didn’t have to come to this, however. If you have a budget and you are careful not to spend the money you don’t have, you can pay your bills. Let’s make sure you understand the some of the bad things that happen when you miss payments.

Credit Scores Get Hit:
When a borrower is past due on an account, he or she will see a large drop in their credit rating. One’s score can easily drop 50-100 points when overdue more than 30 days. What does that mean? Nothing good, for sure, but the worst problem is getting turned down for new loans in the future for cars, homes, credit cars, etc. It also means larger deposits for new utility accounts, as well as often getting turned down by landlords. And, it takes a long time to get those mistakes off your record.

Expensive Fees:
Did you ever stop to think about the cost of those late fees? When late on payments, most lending institutions charge a fee of $25 to 40. And that’s even if you only owed a $100 payment. Think about the cost of that if you do it all the time.

Missed Job Opportunities:
Did you know that many employers now look at their potential employee’s credit profile? In fact, with the economy in poor shape, many otherwise qualified candidates lose job opportunities just because of their poor score. The reasoning is simple, if you are not responsible enough to make your payments on time, then how can they trust you to handle the responsibilities of the job?

Higher Interest Rates:
Miss more than a couple of payments to a company and they will raise your interest rates. So a credit card that you got with a reasonable 10% interest rate can easily shoot to 30%. Not only that, as other creditors find out (through the credit reporting), they will inevitably increase the rates on those accounts as well.

There is an Answer:
If you have that budget and you are sticking to it, then the only reason to be in danger of missing a payment is an emergency. Obviously, it is hard to deal with those. But it is a mistake to let even an emergency get you off track. Instead, it is best to borrow the funds to take care of that emergency until you can get back on track. Because of the ability to get instant loans without super credit ratings, and pay them back over a longer period of time, auto title loans can be an important source of emergency cash. If you find yourself in need of emergency funds to stick to your budget, give the folks at Embassy Loans, the leader in title loans, a call. You will find they can provide the professional help you need to stick to your plan.