Okay, I don’t, but I was reading the ever-inspiring Pick the Brain this morning which has a list of classic Ben Frank wealth-building tips. It’s a thorough and interesting list and a couple of things struck me:

• All those years, my parents were quoting Mr Franklin.
• Mr Franklin was a very clever (if slightly preachy) man. He is long dead and yet he lives on through his inventions, kite-flying and memorable adages.
• There is a lot of nature imagery in his words. “Little strokes fell great oaks”, etc. And clearly he wants us to be frugal, disciplined and patient. And to get up early. Ha!
• But some of them are a bit heavy handed, in my opinion.”Be ashamed to catch yourself idle”? Geez, what a whip-cracker.

Still, in the vain (in both senses of the word) hope of immortalizing myself, I thought I’d take a stab at some adages of my own.

Rich Minx once said….

• A subscriber in the RSS feed is worth two of the Stumbles.
• He that lives upon hope of AdSense will die fasting.
• Rather go to bed postless than rise with a bad post in your mouth.

There. It’s only three but that should be enough to ensure my words live on. Come on, don’t die old and wrinkly at 100, write your own!

A payday loan is a small amount of money (well, up to $1,500) paid to you in advance until your payday. Once your loan request is approved, you send them a check and they wire the same amount straight into your bank account. Then when your payday arrives they cash the check you sent.

Sounds great, right? An easy, short-term cash advance. No wonder the demand for it is so high. But Bankrate.com says no, it’s not a short-term fix at all. It’s obviously popular with all the people who live from paycheck to paycheck and spend before they’ve earned, but spending pay before you’ve earned it leaves you short next time. And so on. It’s also expensive: you’re paying loan fees each time.

I also know from experience how the simple things are really the most expensive. My student loan 10 years ago was ordered via an automated voice over the phone. “Type in the amount you wish to receive. You can order up to $30,000… Thank you! That amount will be deposited into your account tomorrow.”

But I wanted to see more about how so-called payday loans worked, so I opened a random site from my Google search. Its ad had promised me: “$1,500 today. No credit check, no faxing.” Which is good because I haven’t owned a fax in about 50 years.

Inside, there were smiling faces and pictures of banknotes. “Cash wired to your bank account in one hour!” the page promised. The pictures of banknotes seemed to get bigger, but maybe it was just me. I clicked the button…

There was a simple form to fill in. I filled it in. But at the bottom came the catch: Are you a US citizen? No. So that was it. The easy money floated away.

Have you ordered a payday loan before? What happened? 

I am currently sub-letting this flat via an agency, so I’ve never met the guy who actually owns it. But I know something about him: he has bad credit. Let’s call him Mr X.

The phone runs to answerphone and the message goes (in an automated voice): This is a message for Mr X, this is Sopranos Credit, please call us immediately.” *click*

I’ve told our agent to pass on this message, and she has, apparently, but still they call. And “immediately” has been upgraded to “immediately, this is urgent and important.” What will come next? Shady figures lingering outside? A knock at the door? My feet in a dumpster?

I hope Mr X deals with his credit issues soon.

“So, what finally happened? One night, I came home from work and found five bills in the mail that added up to more than I had or would have for the next two weeks. I literally didn’t have the money to put food on the table at that point. I walked into the house and down the hallway to my son’s bedroom, where I saw my infant son bundled up in his bed taking a nap. I looked at him and realized that everything that I was doing was setting things up to make a very difficult childhood for him, not the wonderful one I wanted. I was worried all the time about money and I had learned that all he really needed from me was my love and attention.”

I tend to read female money blogs, but I enjoy reading Simple Dollar. It’s refreshing to see a male perspective on debt management from someone who’s really been affected by it. There are plenty of male blogs offering financial advice, but most seem to be written by people who’ve made pots of money and want to share their investment tips. I think the journey to wealth can be just as interesting, if not more so. You go, gi- er, boy!