The United States government is bankrupt many time over. It has no money and it owes more than 15,000,000,000,000 dollars. WE THE PEOPLE ARE ON THE HOOK FOR THAT MONEY!

Don’t look for help from Obama or the government because they have nothing. All they have the ability to do is to steal from future generations. YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS DEBT.

Start letting your representatives in Washington on both sides know that this has to stop. Get angry because the only way things are going to change is if the American people let their leaders know that enough is enough!

If you are someone who just can’t seem to save, perhaps you need to give yourself an adult allowance. Mind you, that’s not a good thing but perhaps you need to adopt that strategy.

When you were a kid, you probably got some sort of allowance when you reached a certain age. That was the money your parents gave you and you could do with it whatever you wanted. You could save it or blow it on any old thing you wanted. But once you ran out of money and spent it all, you had to wait until the next week (or month) before you got more.

With the debt crises we are in now and the atrocious economy, it is obvious that too many adults have a spending problem. They just can’t stop! I think for a person that has trouble saving, they need to voluntarily put themselves on an allowance and stick to it.

First you would need to figure out what your fixed expenses are like your gas, heat, food, rent, mortgage, gas, etc. Estimate those on the high side to give you some room for error. What you have left then after you account for all those expenses would be your disposable income. Now the problem is that today more and more people don’t have anything left over and that is why they are getting into trouble and having to look for debt relief grants (of which there are none).

If you are one of the lucky ones that do have money left over each month, you then need to make a serious decision: you need to figure out how much you want to save and balance that with how willing you are to give up some of your fun money. In order to be serious about saving, you need to sacrifice. That is the problem we have today: no one is willing to go without and wait until they can afford the things they want. They have to have everything NOW and that means pulling out the credit cards.

Give yourself a set amount (allowance) for fun money and STICK to it. Put the rest away in the bank or in stocks and do it EVERY month. Don’t waiver and give in. That is the only way you will ever learn to save and get out of debt.

Our debt ceiling is a complete and total joke. Today, President Obama was going to request that it be raised by another 1.2 trillion dollars but he decided to delay that request until January 2012 since everyone in the government is on vacation (including him). I wish they would stay at home and never come back.

Didn’t we just go through all this a couple of months ago? Why even bother to debate things at this point? We all know that Congress will eventually agree the debt ceiling has to be raised (again) and they will the next time and the time after that too. It doesn’t matter whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, it is all the same. They don’t care anymore so why bother pretending? We the people don’t care anymore either as we keep electing these jerks into office.

Seriously, lets just be done with it and raise the ceiling to $100 trillion. When that is reached we can raise it to $500 trillion. At some point the Chinese or some other country are going to own us anyway, if there is anything left to own.

The American people don’t really seem to want to cut spending, that is clear. Well, a small percentage does but the rest likes its freebies and entitlements. If we are ever going to change that mindset it probably won’t be in time anyway. All this bickering and pretending is a waste of time and just for show.

We Americans have fallen in love with debt. We fund our whole lives with it and give little thought to the consequences. If it gets too high we search for debt relief grants or file bankruptcy. No big deal. In ten years time or however many years it is, that bankruptcy won’t show up on our record anymore anyway. Totally worth the risk right? Most people seem to think so.

So, we may be borrowing from our kids and grand kids but who cares? We probably won’t be around when they start to understand what has happened and become really pissed. We will be dead and gone but at least we will have led a good life: that fancy house, car, and other stuff are just too tempting. We should be getting free healthcare too that they can pay for later on. It’s all about us and what we want and what we think we deserve.

So in the name of progress, just raise that debt ceiling to an amount where we don’t have to think about it anymore. I hate feeling guilty about stealing from the younger generations.

Debt is normal and everyone has it. There is nothing wrong with being in debt, any kind of debt, because all “normal” people have it. In fact, if you find someone who is not in debt you may wonder “what is wrong with them?”

These are the thoughts of Americans in the year 2011. There is no longer any stigma to being in debt. Declaring bankruptcy is no longer frowned upon, it is just something you do when you get in a bit of trouble. Debt used to be associated with buying a house or a car, two big ticket items that very few could afford to pay cash for. But now, debt is used for everything under the sun that people buy everyday.

I was taught by my parents that if I wanted something I had to save enough money before I could buy it. That’s how I paid for some of the toys I wanted that my parents wouldn’t pay for. I made money doing odd chores around the house as well as babysitting and summer jobs which helped my buy some of those things.

When I became an adult I stuck with the same principle that if I really wanted something, I needed to buy it with cash. Credit cards in my family are only used for convenience as I have never paid a cent of interest to any credit card company. I have been in debt for only automobile purchases and house purchases. I know many go into debt to finance their college tuition and that is most often unavoidable but I was lucky to have that paid for.

Everyone’s circumstances are different and not everyone is as fortunate as I am. That I understand. However, it is clear that way too many people buy things they can’t afford and have to go into debt to do it. They think that because everyone else is doing it, including our politicians, it must be okay. They haven’t learned to save before you buy and to pay for things with cash.

People are now desperate for money. This is the worst economy many of us have ever seen and folks are buried in debt, often with no way out. Unemployment rates continue to stay high and without jobs, people have little hope. In many cases the trouble they are in is because they never learned how to save for a rainy day because, people just aren’t taught to do that anymore.

It’s sad that some think that the government will help them out with debt relief grants or some other free money program. The government isn’t our safety net and never will be but too many of us think it is. Actually, our government is in more trouble than we individually are which poses a bigger threat to all of us. Having the kind of debt and the amount of debt many Americans have today is NOT normal. You may think it is based on what you see and hear but debt like this is a relatively new phenomena.

It’s amusing but really rather sad that people think they can get debt relief from the United States government. After all, our government is in more debt than ever before and I think it is clear that most people have no clue just how serious the problem really is.

To demonstrate the massive extent of our nation’s debt, I found this Reuters article that puts everything in plain English that we can understand:

Our debt right now is over 14 trillion dollars. How much is that really? Well you could put stacks of $1,000 bills together and it would reach 900 miles according to that article.

A stack of $1.00 bills in that amount would stretch all the way to the moon and back!

The real problem is that our government continues to borrow at a rate of 4 billion dollars every day. That equals about 167 million dollars every hour. How can we ever pay all that back?

Yet every day, hundreds if not thousands of people go online looking for government debt relief grants that they hope will help get them out of debt. The have no idea that they are looking for help from the biggest culprit of them all regarding irresponsible financial behavior: our U.S. government.

Whether you agree or disagree with what the politicians are doing in Washington, you should be aware and start to understand just how mammoth our countries debt problem is. No matter how bad you have been with debt and how irresponsible you have been, our elected government officials over the last 20 years have been worse.

Debt is big business in America and around the world. I mean REALLY BIG BUSINESS! Thousands of companies make their money one way or another by you going into debt. They want you to be in debt and they want you to stay in debt so that they can keep making money.

First off there is the credit card industry. Everyone wants to give you a credit card and I’m sure you constantly get pre-approved applications in the mail just like I do all the time. They make it sound like they are doing you a favor and trying to make your life easier with their card. They will give you rewards, a better rate, and better service than the net guy. But all they really want is for you to use their card and hopefully run up your debt. Credit card companies make money when you don’t pay them off each month. They want you to only pay the minimum so they can charge you the maximum in interest.

Even all the big retail stores are in the debt industry as they try to get you to sign up for their credit cards. How many times do I have to tell these people I don’t want their Macy’s card as I try to buy my underwear and socks and try to get out of the store?

Next there is the loan industry. People need loans for cars, boats, houses, and any other big purchase. When you get a loan for any of these you are going into debt and you are paying for that “privilege”. Same as with credit cards, the loan companies hope you only pay the minimum each month. They DON’T want you to pay off the loan. They don’t make as much money if you pay the loan off and give them their money back so they hope you only pay the minimum.

School loans are big business now as well. College costs are way up and most students need a loan to get their degrees. It’s sad that so many college students have to borrow money just to complete their education. Many of these students will be paying off these college loans for 5 to 30 years after they graduate.

Finally there is the industry of debt relief. The system is set up to get you into trouble with debt and once you are, there is a whole network of companies that will help you get out of trouble. For a price of course. Debt relief is like operating on you after you get sick when it might be too late. They want you to get sick so they can get you on that operating table.

Is there really anything that can truly be called debt relief? NO, because the only thing that would qualify would be free money and there is no such thing as free money. There are no government grants for debt relief. There are no programs that will suddenly erase your debt. There is nothing that will magically make your debt go down!

Debt relief companies will promise you lots of things but they won’t get rid of your debt. Oh, they will “help” you by making you more organized by moving this loan over here and that loan over there. They will combine this loan with that loan and maybe get you a lower rate and they might give you a lot of fluffy advice on how to not get yourself into further debt problems. But none of this will come for free and you will be paying them because they want their cut and they are in business too.

That is the industry of debt and the way the system works now. Get as many people into debt and then tell them you will help them get out of it. Every business along the way profits from this scenario and the goal is to get you there and keep you there. The longer the better.

People need debt relief and the economy just doesn’t seem to be turning around. While the stock market is up, real people are in real trouble with their finances as jobs are still hard to find and don’t pay as much as they once did.

This means that people continue to go online searching for government grants for debt relief and what they find is very confusing. Most of the websites you find are ones that are full of advertisements and seem to have no real information. They might also lead you to debt relief sites that make spectacular promises such as if you use them you will be able to get rid of all your debt.

So how do you find a legitimate website about debt relief grants or other government programs that might help you out?

Never Pay for Information!

First of all, you should never have to pay for the information. Some websites will ask a fee and in return promise to get you a grant. The FTC had to actually come in and shut some of these websites down and they made new rules. No company is allowed to charge for debt relief assistance up front and they can’t make promises that they can’t guarantee. In the world of grants, no one can make such a guarantee because there is no government grant that anyone can be assured of getting.

If you are looking for debt relief grants or anything else you hope to get, always make sure you go to an official government website. Those would be the ones that end in “.gov”. For instance, if you are trying to find grants you should go to http://www.grants.gov/. Please notice that it has the “.gov” at the end or the URL and that is how you will know that it is an official website of the government.

But There Is Bad News

Even if you go to a legitimate website like the one I just referenced, it is unlikely that you will be able to find any government grants for debt relief like you hope to find. The truth is that our United States government is not in the business of giving out grants just because people are in debt. There are a variety of grants available but there are none for people that are just in debt and want to get out.

Maybe you have heard about debt relief grants from rumors or advertisements online. If you see ads for things like that it is easy to believe that they are real and really do exist. But misleading advertisements can be a ploy companies use just to try to get your business. Once they have your interest, they will try to charge you for other services or for things that you really could get for free with some work on your own.

The bottom line is that you should always be going to official (.gov) websites to find out information about any government program you want to know more about. It will be free to get the information and you should never pay for it. If someone does want to charge you for their help, you may choose to pay but you should know that they are not a government agency.

Rather than look for debt relief grants and other things that might miraculously erase your debt, you might think about debt settlement. It is something you can hire a company to do for you or something you can do yourself.

Debt settlement is just what it sounds like: you agree to settle for less on the amount of debt you owe to a company. The incentive for the company to settle is that they will get something from you rather than face the real possibility of getting nothing. The tricky part though is how to do it.

You can always try to bargain with companies that you owe money to. After all, it doesn’t hurt to ask and it costs you nothing to try. You might have heard stories where people bargain with their phone company over charges their kids rang up and they ended up only having to pay part of the bill. Again, it is free to ask and tell them your situation.

If you are going to try to settle the amount you owe yourself, you will need the money to be able to pay the company if you are successful. For instance, if you owe $1,000 and are able to settle for $800, it won’t look good if you then have to reveal that you don’t have the $800 either. Why would they settle if you don’t have the money at all so you need to be able to pay the amount you hope to talk them down to.

No company, credit card or otherwise, would ever want you to know that they might settle. That is why you never hear them giving you that option. What I have just explained is the do it yourself debt settlement option that may or may not work for you.

Professional Debt Settlement Companies

If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can always enlist the help of a debt settlement company. But make sure you understand that this does not mean your problems are over. These are private companies that have no authority from the law to protect you. Your debt is still your debt and your problems are still your problems.

The advertising some of these debt settlement companies put out is often very misleading. They may make it sound like it is a sure thing that they can help you and that you will be able to cut your bill from anywhere from 25% to 75%. Promises are one thing but can they really do it?

One thing that you need to know is that you will have to pay for the companies services and it will be hard to figure out exactly how much. Every company may have a different way of calculating the fee: from charging you a percentage of your overall debt to others that charge a percentage of what they save you. But for most of them, you will be paying monthly fees as well as a one time sign up fee.

Debt relief and debt settlement companies have been getting complaints for years associated with the promises they make and the fees they charge. The problem has become bad enough that the FTC has had to step in and make new rules. You can read about the new rules that have gone into effect today October 27, 2010 here and see the excerpt below:

There are many people in debt right now and the economy is very bad. Jobs are hard to find and many people have had to go into debt just to stay in their homes and put food on the table. That may be why you and so many others are hoping to find help from the government in the form of debt relief grants or some other kind of monetary aid.

But the government does not have any grants to give to people just because they are in debt. Other websites may lead you to believe that you can just apply and get free money for being in debt but that is not true.

With the election of President Obama and all the news about the stimulus bill, even more people are trying to get free money from the government. You might have high credit card debt and want to find out if you can get a grant from the government to pay it off. But you can’t get that kind of help from Obama or the government.

The U.S. government still has all sorts of grants but you have to have a reason and a purpose to get them. There are small business grants, education grants, grants for artists, grants for disaster relief, and many other types of grants but you have to show how you will use the money and they have to be for a specific purpose. Again, just being in debt and needing money from the government is not a reason to get any kind of grant and there is no such thing as debt relief grants.

First of all, I have no indication whatsoever that they are a scam. In fact, I have never read anything bad about them anywhere. My big complaint with them was that no where on their site could I find a price. Yes, there is a free trial but it didn’t even tell you how long the free trial lasts. If I am going to sign up for something I want to know BEFORE I BOTHER SIGNING UP how long the trial period is and how much the service costs after the trial period ends.

In response to my first post, someone who claimed to work for DebtGoal left this comment:

DebtGoal is only $14.95 per month after the trial period is over – a discounted price of $11.95 is offered to members who sign up from from preferred partner sites including this blog.

We aim to put our price upfront in the registration pages clearly and in bold letters so our members know when they will be billed and how much. Clearly, we are not meeting this objective – we’ve taken your feedback and will put price info in all the right places.

Bhawna Guglani

The good news is that the monthly price of $14.95 is now clearly written in the print towards the bottom of their DebtGoal.com sales page under the heading “How Much Does DebtGoal Cost”. It is great to see a price right there for everyone to see before they sign up for the free trial!

So after all this, is DebtGoal.com a scam? Again, I have personally never tried them but they did add their price to the landing/sales page in response to my concern. That was great to see and it means they are responsive to suggestions and complaints. I have also looked throughout the Internet and have not been able to find any substantive complaints about them anywhere. It looks to me like they are 100% above board and they are an option you might consider if you are having trouble managing your debt.