What’s the Big Difference Between Credit Cards and Layaway?

When you buy something with a credit card, you can take it home with you that day.  You make payments, pay interest, and pay any fees as required by your credit card company.  With layaway, you don’t take the product home with you right away but instead have to wait until you paid it off completely.  Unlike credit cards, however, despite the fact that you might make payments over a long period of time, you won’t pay any interest.  This can save you a lot of money and allow you to spend cash that would’ve been spent on interest on other things you want.

Why Layaway?

Layaway is for people who have a hard time keeping onto their cash.  Big purchases like computers, laptops, appliances, furniture, etc. can be very expensive sometimes costing thousands of dollars.  Most people don’t have several thousand dollars lying around to buy something outright.  Through layaway, people can make interest free payments on whatever they want and can work a structured budget without worrying about saving the money and/or spending it before they should.

Which Companies Participate in Layaway?

Layaway payment plans used to be fairly popular years ago but died away with the popularity of credit cards.  However, there has a been a resurgence of layaway plans as people have been cutting up their credit cards and have been paying for things with hard cash.  Right now, Sears, Kmart, and participating Best Buy stores provide layaway plans which can be used for products at their brick-and-mortar stores.