A few years ago my wife and I faced a decision: buy a house or buy a truck. House prices in the Atlanta area were sky high then, so we got a Sierra 1500 full-size GMC truck instead.  Her parents said we were crazy, but I think the way things turned out we did the smart thing.

House values have fallen, but that truck is now how I earn a living.  I used it to drive to work, but about a year ago I lost my job and started looking outside the area for whatever work I could find.  Turned out there was great work in disaster recovery for guys like me with smaller sized vehicles because we can maneuver where big trucks can’t go.  The problem was you don’t get paid like a regular job – you’re a subcontractor, and often the work involves insurance payments (like with hurricane or wildfire recovery operations).

We had bad credit because of a health care problem in the family a few years ago.  Everyone’s ok now, but it drove up our bills and wrecked our credit rating.  So I had to look at the net pay in the end, then figure out a way to get to it.

So I went to Atlanta Car Title Loans, where I got a cash advance against the title on my truck.  Which was perfect: the vehicle that got me the work also got me the loan to cover bills in the lag time.  They have a simple online application, the money comes by the next day – its the loan with car title that kept us afloat until the good money started rolling in.  (We’ve gently pointed this out to my wife’s parents, who now agree with us.)