As someone who's dug themselves out of this exact hole (I was pretty freakin' deep), here's what I did... maybe it'll help you.

I really struggled to get myself out from under my payday loan cycle but in the end I realized that the only way that's going to happen is if I break the cycle.

So what I did was this: I called up every single person/company that I owed money to and, instead of talking to a billing department, what I did was (where possible) asked to speak to the customer retention department. In some cases they'd transfer me to Billing, but usually they'd help by explaining my situation to Billing on my behalf, which also helped.

Once I got them on the phone, I explained my situation to them - it went, pretty much, like this: "Hi there, you'll notice that my account is past due and that my payment schedule is... bad. I don't want it to be bad, but it is... and this is why: You see, I got caught up in a payday loan cycle - getting advances on my paychecks to pay off my bills on time. You see this was all because I was trying to balance my duties to pay everyone back but, instead, it's turned into a real problem. It's become a cycle that I can't seem to break and the interest I'm being charged is only putting me further into the hole (meaning less money to pay you at the end of the cycle). And so, what I'd like to do, if you'll help me, is to break that cycle and work with you to pay my account in full."

I explained the plan as follows:

There's simply no way I'll be able to pay you this month. I need to pay off my payday loan while having enough money to live off of.

However, once I pay off this loan, I estimate that I'll have $X left over. What I would like to do is pay you my regular bill starting this month and, over time, pay down the excess until I'm caught up.

In my experience everyone I spoke to were willing to work with me. Why? Because they were going to get their money, all of it. It'd take a bit longer, but it would all be accounted for. Would they have preferred it all in one lump sum? Sure. But to them it's better to get it over time than not at all.

Anyways, once I got the okay, I took one month 'off' from my payday loan. I paid it up, took what was left, bought groceries, filled the tank, etc and BANKED whatever was left.

The next month I paid all of my bills and, because I banked what I had left, I added $10 extra. For the bill that was closest to being caught up, I paid an extra $10. I continued that until the lowest bill was caught up, then added the excess to the next lowest bill (about $15ish extra a month) and so on. I literally had little to no social life for about a year, but once I got the momentum going things got a hell of a lot easier.

By the end of the year I had 3 full bills caught up and was well over halfway for the other 3. That was a few years ago now and I'm still debt free - I have a much better paying job, so that helps, but I definitely learned over that year how to live within my means.

It's hard and it sucks, but... well, it worked for me.

Good luck, Transpire.

Okay, here I come to defend payday loan interest rates (but not other business practices such as encouraging deferring). APRs and interest rates are bad for comparison to other forms of credit because of the high default rate and short loan duration.

If you could get a better loan, you would. So the people who get payday loans are considerd too risky for credit cards or bank loans. If just 1 in 10 loans default, that means the other 9 people have to generate enough interest to cover that 1 person. If the loans are for a year and no early payment, then having a interest rate of 12% will cover it. If however, the loan is for a month, then you need a 12x increase, so 144%. If the loan is for two weeks, then another 2x, so 288%. And this is just to cover the default risk of 10%. When talking about customers that would rely on payday loans, the default risk is higher.

Also, these loans are generally pretty small, around a few hundred dollars. So to cover the marginal cost of that one customer, you'll also need a high interest rate. The customer LTV is just this one short loan and the costs are higher than say for a credit card. Credit card users probably have auto pay or regularly send in checks. For a payday loan, you often get payments in person and from a variety of sources: cash, prepaid debit, checks. This means running physical locations, a high cost.

In short, the economics for payday loans are pretty scary. There's room for competition and innovation to lower the prices, but understand that the floor is rather high.

And don't forget about the cost of the most important and bought good for every person...food. You went into transportation and I will elaborate into how that pitfall further drags the poor into the shackles of debt.

Without a car, dinner can become one of the most stressful parts of the day for the poor. After working many hours in a job that garners little to no respect, a 15 minute drive home has instead turned into an hour long bus ride with a 20 minute walk (like you said). And this is the second time that this person has taken the trip today. Since they know that they will not pass their grocery store on the bus route, this person is forced to shop at the neighborhood corner store for food tonight.

Now this may seem great because it supports a locally owned and financed business for a person that probably lives in the neighborhood. But from experience, let me tell you that what this really means for the consumer is that they are spending somewhere close to 30% more on goods that they would get at the grocery store, and close to 50% or more on goods from a walmart or sam's.

Also, the meats are frozen, shitty, off-brand cuts that have been sitting in there for close to a month. And the produce is lacking in diversity and consistency. You want a potato? Ok, but we are going to charge you per potato instead of by weight and we will damn well guarantee you that those fuckers will be tiny. They also will not be crisp or have that long of a shelf life, so, as soon as this person walks out of the store, he/she knows that he/she will have to be back either tomorrow or the next day.

Months of this leads the person to file for food stamps because, god damn it, if I have to spend over 40% of my money on shitty food because I can't afford to live near a proper grocery store, and I have spent hundreds of dollars on bus fare, sales tax and rent every month, hell yeah I want the government to help me feed my kids. The problem is, I have little to no time to cook so I buy shitty food. And now I am digging a deeper hole for myself and my children by making them more unhealthy and increasing their cost in health care.

That is the scenario that hurts millions in this country. I have been watching it for 5 years now just out of my front door. I am privileged, white, male, and come from an affluent family but have been a poor bartender and living in cheap neighborhoods. I have little to no money in my name, no car, and still...I am better off than 90% of these people because I have insurance, cell phone, college degree, job security and no debt.

And STILL I can't save any money. How are they supposed to?

Take this perfectly valid but minor laundry example and multiply by 1000 when you're poor and sick.

Middle income job with average medical insurance: chronic disease becomes manageable. Type 2 diabetes: monthly checkups, blood meter, insulin, and supplies paid for by insurance, blood sugar controlled, minor inconvenience. Need glasses? check. Toothache? Your dentist will squeeze you in (and give you Percocet and start a root canal), but chances are you had that cavity fixed months before it started hurting. You'll keep that tooth instead of getting it pulled.

Poor, no insurance? Type 2 diabetes becomes life-threatening. You wait until your vitals are whacked enough so they'll let you in the ER, but not so whacked you'll fall into a coma at home. You'll suffer the consequences of badly-controlled blood sugar (blindness, ulcers, infections, gangrene). If you manage to stay healthy long enough to get hired to some crappy job, you'll probably get fired after calling in sick a few times.

Glasses? You'll keep wearing that 10-year-old pair even though your prescription has changed. You used to read but not any more because everything is blurry.

Toothache? A few sleepless nights, then the emergency room. If you're lucky you'll get an ER doc who will pull the tooth; otherwise you'll get some penicillin and motrin (poor people don't get effective pain relief in ER's because everyone knows they're scamming for opiates) and told to go to the dentist. You'll call every dentist in town before finding one that takes indigent patients, and he and his staff will treat you like crap. You'll have to take the entire day off work because it's 2 bus transfers and a long walk to his office. Your dignity will take another hit, and your cortisol levels will rise another notch, bumping up your blood pressure and your blood sugar, and your life expectancy will drop by another 6 months.

TL;DR: People die in the US because of the thickness of their wallet. Anyone who doesn't think health care is a right instead of a privelege should be forced to beg for medical care for a while.

edit: grammar