Getting Cash When You Desperately Need It

photo credit: pfala

If you hit upon hard times and need an urgent, temporary cash injection to pay a bill or get through to payday, the Investing for Beginners blog has five ways you can quickly get your hands on some cash:

• If you have securities (a house, or investments), get a temporary line of credit that is backed by these securities. Weigh the risks first, of course - especially if it’s backed against shares, they could go down and you could get in even bigger trouble.
• Get a second job. It doesn’t have to be forever, and it might even be over the internet from home. But it’ll get you extra cash.
• Try a loan against your 401(k) - but only if it’s an extremely desperate circumstance. Borrowing from your retirement fund is usually not at all advisable.
• Check if you can redeem some rewards points. Most people have a credit card that includes reward points and you can often redeem these as vouchers for various grocery and department stores, so if groceries or other store goods are what you need, this is like getting a form of “cash”.
• Sell your jewelry! We’re not so happy about this one but it’s a valid point - gold is valuable and if you have some excess gold jewelry that you could probably live without, consider selling it off to solve your financial crisis.