WHERE TO LOOK FOR FREE MONEY

There are several places where you might find free money:

You can use the following example to do your own research.

John and Janet live in Cook County Illinois with their three children. John earns a salary from his full-time job; Janet has been staying home raising their children. They live in a cramped apartment that is too small for five people.

But times are tough these days. John's salary no longer covers all of the family's essential needs due to rising food, gas and monthly rental payments. Janet has been looking for a job, but hasn't been able to find one. She also needs to update her administrative skill or learn new ones. And one of their children has health problems that go untreated because John's limited insurance policy won't pay for the treatment. Can they get some free money or other assistance to help alleviate these problems? Possibly, but they'll have to do some research to see if such money is available for them.

They start out by looking to see if there is any help from the Federal Government. First they go to the Government Benefits web site. They decide to browse the Benefits by Category, and select items that relate to career development, child care, education and training, food and nutrition, healthcare, and living assistance. Lists of these programs appear, and they can read a summary of each program and the eligibility criteria.

On the same Government Benefits web site, they click on Browse Benefits by State. Since they live in Illinois, they select that state. There are several things of interest to them, including food programs and temporary assistance to families. But then they discover a better way to find all of the specific information that they need.

By clicking on the Benefit Finder section of the website, they come across a list of questions in the form of a detailed checklist on subjects such as household, education, health, income and assistance, and work experience. By checking off all of the items that apply to their situation, they are presented with a personalized listing of government grants and other types of assistance that might be available to them in Illinois.

But this list of state benefits may not be all-inclusive. They also need to check the Illinois State Government website, which they find by doing a Google search on "Illinois State Government."

You can search for your own State Government site here:



On the Illinois State Government website, they have to click around a bit to find information on grants and financial assistance. They find it by clicking on the links at the top of the page -- Education and Family and Home -- and also click on the "How Do I" link in the middle of the page. This way, they can see if there are any other grants or programs that were not shown on the Government Benefits website.

Now John and Janet need to see if there are any government grants or financial assistance programs offered by their Local Government. They go back to the Illinois State Government home page and find a link for "Government" on the left. They click on that link, and on the right side of the page there is a link to Local Government. When they click on the "How Do I" link on the right, they find some local government and other programs that might apply to their particular situation.

Admittedly, this has taken some time, but so far it has paid off. And if the web searching gets to be too frustrating, John and Janet can always call the information number for their state and/or local government offices and ask the operator to connect them to someone who can help them find what they are looking for.

But John and Janet don't stop there. There may be other programs out there for them. If they can find more than one, they can compare them and select the one that's best for them. Or if they get turned down for one, they may have other alternatives.



Go to the next page to learn about John and Janet's next steps.

Go back to the first page of this article

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