As your wallet gets thinner in these financially rocky times, you may start thinking about ways to get money that you'd have never considered before. One of the coveted but sometimes overlooked methods of grabbing some spare cash is through government grants for individuals - not companies or teams of scientists, but regular people like you and me. But too many people don't even know what a government grant is!

A grant is simply money donated by the government for a specific purpose. There are an almost limitless number of programs designed to grease the wheels of this system and get money to worthwhile causes, programs for everything from getting out of debt to repairing your automobile. The biggest checks, though, are generally ones for small business owners just starting out, because a healthy economy is so vital to the country and because America takes so much pride in its small businesses. Even being homebound isn't necessarily a disadvantage, you can potentially still get checks of up to fifty thousand dollars!

Once granted the money, you don't have to pay it back. Ever. That's the difference between a grant and a loan. No interest, no hidden fees... if you find those things involved, then it's not a real government grant. However, it's top priority for you to use the money for the reasons you stated it was for in the first place. Don't think you can pull a fast one over ol' Sam and get money 'to help orphans' and then spend it all on potato chips and beer! Even apart from the moral issues involved, it's not worth the penalties if you get caught. Don't screw yourself over, be honest.

You have to be an American citizen to apply for a grant - it's kind of one of the insular perks of really 'belonging' to the country. You also, and this may seem obvious, have to be eighteen. Sorry kids! Try hunting down a good database and searching through it for any general programs you could potentially make it with. The process isn't necessarily as legendarily sow as typical government bureaucracy - if you're lucky, you can be cashing those checks in as little as a week. Be sure to act while the time is ripe! Although grants have been a longstanding tradition in America, no one has any way of knowing when individual programs will have their plugs pulled.

Don't wallow in despair and cynicism over the government during times like these. Now more than ever, you need to have faith that the system isn't wholly broken. Why not try out some government grants for individuals yourself and see if some of them work for you? You have nothing to lose, and plenty of green to gain.