MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR, Calif. -- It’s a week before the next payday and you are already hurting for money. You’ve gone through each option you have, but those bills are not going to pay themselves. You think you can tough it out, but it will only hurt your credit. It feels as if no one wants to help and you feel yourself digging a deeper and deeper hole. So you go to a payday lender, which is someone who specializes in lending money in advance.

This seems appealing so the check is made. You feel you have rid yourself of the awful thought of debt.

What you don’t know is that the payday lenders that issued the advance check will charge up to 25 percent of the amount you wish to advance. For example, in a situation where a Marine borrows $200, the lenders make $50.

These situations usually turn into a cycle. The person needs money in advance but even more money is taken from the upcoming check. They then need more money in advance to make up for the money lost the check before. The yearly interest rate rises and rises until they are in over their head.

“Service members usually use the payday lenders as a last resort,” said Craig Hughes, financial specialist, Marine Corps Community Services. “They need to learn what I do so they can use us instead of hurting their credit.”

Hughes works for MCCS and specializes in working with service members to control monthly budgets.

“I give the Marine or sailor information on how to chop away at their bills by cutting down their daily expenses,” said Hughes.

The service member will actually be put on a program where they will abide by the rules of the financial specialist and it will help the service member stop buying the pointless items that they do not need.

This program will also help more and more service members from buying into the schemes of the payday lenders.

“We’ve seen yearly interest rates almost up to 400 percent,” said Hughes. “We just hope we can get the word out to as many service members as possible so they will not be affected.”

“We at MCCS do not want service members to feel alone in their process of debt consolidation,” said Hughes. “We want to let them know that we are here to help.”