If you consistently have trouble making ends meet, you need more than just a one-time cash infusion

Final Word

If you need money in a hurry to cover an unexpected expense, cash advance apps offer a cheap and convenient way to get it. However, they’re not a long-term solution to your financial woes. You need to stop living paycheck to paycheck.

Fortunately, many of these apps help you with that too. For starters, they help you break free from payday lenders and the high interest payments they charge. They also help you stay on top of your bills and avoid the late or overdraft fees that are weighing down your budget.

Some payday advance apps also offer budgeting tools to help you track and manage your spending or automated savings tools to help you build up your emergency fund. Many also provide ways to help you earn extra money through cash-back rewards, extra shifts, or side gigs. With the help of these tools, you won’t need to rely on cash advances to cover those unplanned expenses; you’ll have money in the bank to take care of them .

However, you can opt to pay back the loan early. You can also extend the due date once on your first loan with no late fee or penalty. As you continue to use the app, you can earn additional extension credits that allow you to delay payment up to three times in a row.

• Varo Believe Credit Card. If you’re trying to build your credit score, Varo’s secured credit card can help. It’s linked to your Varo Bank Account, and each time you use the card, Varo automatically sets aside money to meet the payment. That guarantees you can always pay your balance in full and on time. Varo reports these on-time payments to the three major credit bureaus to boost your credit score fast. You can even watch it improve through credit monitoring in the Varo Bank app.

When your next paycheck arrives, Brigit automatically pulls the money out of your bank account

• Roundups. To boost the savings in your Vault faster, you can sign up for Roundups. Every time you make a purchase with your SoFi Money debit card, it gets rounded up to the nearest dollar and the extra cents are transferred to your Vault.

Earnin works much the same way as Brigit, but it only allows you to cash out up to $100 per day and $500 per pay period. There’s no fee for this service, but you can add a “tip” of any amount up to $14. Although the tip is optional, Palaniappan told Vox in that many Earnin users voluntarily pay it to help keep the app running. Some even opt to “pay it forward,” deliberately leaving a bigger tip to cover the cost for those who can’t afford it.

When your next paycheck arrives, Brigit automatically pulls the money out of your bank account

• Free Fraud Protection. MoneyLion uses multi-factor authentication to keep your account secure. It also enables you to lock and unlock your debit card through the app.

DailyPay boasts that it can help employers attract nearly twice as many job applicants and reduce turnover by more than 45%. It even says one out of six workers using DailyPay applied for their current jobs specifically because of this benefit. Companies that use it include Kroger, Vera Bradley, Westgate Resorts, and The Maids International.

However, if your credit is poor, the interest rate on a personal loan could be as high as 30%. Additionally, these loans often come with origination fees of 1% to 6%. So, before signing off on a loan, check the total cost to make sure it wouldn’t be cheaper to use your credit card.