Like most families, both my husband and I have to work full-time in order to pay the mortgage. This means that our two toddlers have to attend full-time childcare. A few weeks ago our childminder dropped a bombshell on us when she gave us two weeks’ notice of her intention to quit childminding and take up a new job which would provide her with a much larger income. Given that her husband had been made redundant earlier this year we were extremely pleased for her but it left us with just two weeks to arrange alternative childcare.

Having used the same childminder since the birth of our first child, we had no idea how difficult it would be to find two childcare places together. We eventually found a nursery which had two places available but the cost per month was more than my monthly salary and so we simply couldn’t afford it. Unless I could find another childminder, I was faced with the prospect of having to stay home to look after the children myself which in turn would mean that I would have to resign my job and the financial implications of that would have been disasterous. Fortunately, when I collected the children for the last time from their regular childminder she told me that she gave me the contact of another childminder who might have a couple of free places.

Whatever the poor woman must have thought of me when I turned up unannounced on her doorstep just a few minutes later with two tired, hungry and extremely iritable toddlers in tow, I’ve no idea. But she very kindly invited me for a cup of tea and I took to her immediately. I was so utterly relived when she agreed to take the children as of the following Monday, that I actually cried!

However, as with everything in life, there was a slight hitch. In oder to secure two places, the new childminder required two months fees in advance. Although her rates were the same as my previous childminder, I was used to paying fees monthly in arears and i simply didn’t have sufficient funds in my online cash account to pay two months up front. But I couldn’t afford to lose the places either. Cue more tears…this time on my husband’s shoulder. Being the hero that he is, he told me not to worry and promised that he would sort everything out. Being the pessimist that I am, I had my doubts and was mentally drafting my letter of resignation from work.

However, I should have had more faith in my brilliant husband because after a little bit of research on the internet he came up with the idea of getting a payday loan. I’d seen payday loans advertised on the telly but didn’t really know what they were until my husband explained that they were short-term cash advance loans that you took out until your next payday when you paid the entire maount back plus interest. We worked out that we could afford to borrow the money we needed to pay the childminder immediately and that we would still have enough money to pay the mortgage and our bills once the loan was repaid in a couple of weeks time.

I thought it would take ages to apply and even longer to get the money but my other half completed an on-line application form and sent copies of his id and payslips by scanning them into the computer. The whole process only took a few minutes and we were amazed when we got an email almost immediatley telling us that the application had been approved and that the money would be in my husband’s account the next morning.

The following afternoon I paid the fees to the childminder and secured two places for my children as of the Monday. They have now been going to Hilary’s for a few weeks now and they absolute love her and the other children which is is such a relief as I always feel so guilty about having to leave them to go to work. My husband’s salary was paid into his account at the end of August and on the same day the payday loan company automatically took the full loan amount (plus interest of course) directly from his account.