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Coronavirus Cash Crisis: Should I Take Out A Personal Loan?

The coronavirus pandemic prompted an unprecedented shutdown of the U.S. economy. We asked if taking out a new personal loan would be helpful.
Posted at 12:36 PM, Apr 27, 2020
and last updated 2020-04-27 12:36:06-04

Coronavirus Cash Crisis: Should I take out a personal loan?

"I never like to encourage leveraging payments on something that could be a high-interest entity. But this is desperate times calling for desperate measures," said Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial.

"After you go through the process of making a list of your essential expenses, getting on the phone with every service provider, seeing whatever resources are available to you, then and only then should you start thinking about financing to fill in the gaps," said Stefanie O'Connell Rodriguez, a personal finance author.

"If you do have a fairly good-ish credit score, you could probably get a personal loan for less than 5%," said Arindam Nag, chief executive of Centsai.

"Being able to, let's say, you take out a personal loan which can offer a lower interest rate than a credit card, for example, might be a valuable tool in this time for filling in the gap," said O'Connell Rodriguez.