Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to
raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

Somehow I've managed to become WalletPop's poster child for payday loans. I wrote about my experiences with them a few months ago, and then quickly wound up being asked to write a little series about payday loans (the series is at the bottom of the page of just aforementioned post). And now that we're doing a "raising cash in a hurry" series, what does my editor suggest I write about? You guessed it.

It is true, though, that earlier this year I went to a payday loan store. Not once. Not twice. But three times. And in those cases, I was able to get cash in a hurry -- faster than most of these other ideas we have, I'll bet. But that doesn't make it the best of the ideas.

I'd call it one of those last-last-last resort methods, but I have to give the payday lending industry its due, it is quick. Once I made my decision, it took me about 14 hours and 20 minutes to get my money.