Misinformation is rampant on the Internet and a lot of people can be fooled into thinking something is available from the government when it is not. This has especially been the case during President Obama’s term as the number of people who are out to mislead you has skyrocketed.

You might have heard about the Obama first time home buyers program, the Making Home Affordable Program, the first time home buyer stimulus program, or some other variation of those words. Most importantly, you might have been lead to believe that the government and Obama is giving away free money and/or free grants for first time home buyers. That is FALSE!

You cannot and will not receive cash, grants, or money in your pocket for being a first time home buyer from President Obama or the US government. In other words, no one is going to pay you money to buy a home!

You might ask: but what about all the news stories and things you read on the Internet about Obama helping people avoid foreclosures, buy homes, and the free stimulus money for single parents buying homes? All those thing you hear are for tax credits and reduced interest on loans. They are programs that will help you get funding for a house but they won’t flat out give you money to buy one! A good place to go to get your question answered if you are a first time home buyer is here at the Hud.gov website.

The main thing to understand is that any state or government program is there to help assist you in getting a loan and understanding how to buy a home. That is all: they are not there to give you money even though some people make it sound that way.

There are lots of resources that you can use to get lower interest rates and secure the funding you need for your earnest money or down payment on a house. FHA loans for instance, is part of HUD and they have been around since 1934 helping prospective low income earners buy their first home. Be sure to explore the Hud.gov website and there are links there that will send you to every state so that you can read and learn more about what types of assistance might be available to you. Stick to websites that end in “.gov” so that you know that the information you are reading is genuine and real.

Another warning here: there is no such thing as grants for child care or for day care. If you are looking for this type of free grant from the government, you should know that President Obama has NOT started any such thing.

With times continuing to be tough and money running tight in many households, the cost of daycare takes a huge bite out of people’s budgets. It is extremely difficult to get by these days when you have to pay money for child care while you go to work.

Understandably, some of you are looking for grants that will help pay for your child care costs and hoping that there is such a thing offered by the government. But there is not and Obama has not passed any legislation of this type.

As always with grants, the only real trusted place to go on the Internet for government grants is the official website Grants.gov. Whatever kind of grant you are looking for, you should be able to find it there.

Also, make sure you know that all government grants are free and you don’t have to pay to apply for them. You might come across some advertisers that charge for their services and guarantee that you will get a grant if you use them. No one can make that guarantee and while you might decide to pay someone to help you apply for a grant to make it easier, you can learn how to apply yourself for free if you are willing to invest the time.

There is a lot of spam on the Internet as well as information that is not official or accurate. If you are looking for information on school grants or grants for moms going back to school, you might have noticed that it is hard to find any real information online. Most of the websites you click on when you do a Google search will give you the run around and you won’t be able to learn anything.

You need to find the official government websites and those always have end in “.gov”. Any website that has the URL that ends with .gov is an official government website and the information on it can be trusted. For instance, for school grants and federal student aid you can go to http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ where you can apply for the FAFSA.

If you want to learn anything about Pell grants or any other type of federal school program or aid, you should go to the department of education website that can be found at http://www.ed.gov/. Notice again that the link to that website shows it ending with “.gov” and that means it is an official government website and all the information on it should be trustworthy.

There are other websites that can be official that DON’T end in .gov such as https://www.salliemae.com/ for student loans. Not every website having to do with grants, school loans, or other government information has to end with .gov but it is a good thing to look out for and know that if the site you are on does end with .gov, it is the real thing.

There is lots of news about the November midterm elections about how Republicans and conservatives are angry and there might be changes to the Senate and the House of Representatives. Right now, Democrats control everything: the Presidency, the Senate, and the House.

If angry voters come out and vote for Republicans, can that hurt the changes that have been made such as the Obama stimulus grants? Will there be less money going out from the government to the people who need it?

The answer is that even if Republicans win enough votes to take over both houses of Congress (unlikely) or just one section, there will probably be very few changes that you will notice. President Obama will still be the president for two more years and he will most likely veto anything they try to do.

Republicans and conservatives want to stop the government spending that they say is out of control. So, they will say no to any of President Obama’s ideas that require spending. But the 2009 stimulus bill has long been passed and nothing will change. The Obama student loans bill went through and that is not something that they would likely try to change either.

If conservatives win in November (big or small), it will just be a minor setback for Obama as he will still be in charge. He can block anything they try to do because they won’t have enough votes to override his veto. So, if you are looking for Obama grants for moms, back to school grants, Obama small business grants, or any other type of grants or financial aid from the government, it is likely that nothing will have changed after the November elections no matter who wins.

The important thing to remember is that President Obama will be in office for at least two more years and he could get elected for four more years after that. So, nothing drastic is going to change during that time. There will still be the stimulus grants money that is available and President Obama will most likely continue to try to pass government programs that are designed to help the people in need.

You should know that advertisers are not allowed to use President Obama’s name or likeness in any of their ads. There are many spammy emails that come to my mailbox that are trying to get you to click on the Obama grants link and it will take you to some online grant application website. Surfing the Internet will also occasionally uncover some sort of advertisement that either directly or indirectly hints that you can benefit from Obama’s stimulus grant program and they can show you how.

The FTC had to come in and stop a whole lot of these ads a year ago that were feeding off of the popularity of the new President and making it sound as though there were special grant programs and they could help you get free money. These ads were showing a picture of the President and using his name aggressively in their ads. People who didn’t understand that the grant programs are free to apply for were then being taken to websites that would charge monthly fees for their services.

There are many things today’s advertisers are targeting and they include aid packages that people think they can get from President Obama. They include things like:

Obama Pell grants
Obama scholarships
Obama college grants
Obama business grants
Obama education grants
Obama health grants
Obama school grants
Obama small business grants
Obama grants for Moms
Obama scholarships for Moms
Obama college grants for Moms
Obama single Mom grants
Obama school grants for Moms
Obama back to school grants
Obama back to school grants for Moms

While some of these are legitimate grant programs, in reality there is nothing here that wasn’t available from past presidents. These are all standard government grants that have nothing to do specifically with President Obama. Advertising with his name or hinting that he is somehow responsible and they are bigger and more easily available because of him is misleading.

You should also always read the terms and conditions before you sign up for anything and this is especially important if you are giving your credit card number out. The government grant process is confusing to many and there are some legitimate grant companies that will help you with the process. But you should do some research on the company first by doing an online Google search (for instance type in “scam” or “reviews” and then the company name) to see what people are saying about the service before you give your credit card out.

I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately with headers that look just like the one above (without the “not”). Usually they are in my spam folder but occasionally one slips through into the real folder. They seem to lead to different online colleges or some other college placement type website.

Is it true that you can really get $10,000 from Obama or an Obama school grant? Or are these emails just more of the same over the top advertising to get your attention and mislead you? I clicked a link that said “financial aid packages” on one of the sites and this is what I got:

I don’t know where they are coming up with the 10K number…perhaps it just sounds good. The numbers above ($5,350 and $2500) don’t even add up to $10,000.

Obama school turnaround grants have been in the news lately but those are grants that are going to be given to the schools that are successful in well, turning themselves around. They are not grants for individual people like moms who want to go back to school.

Advertisers continue to feed off of and use the public’s perception that there are real and new Obama debt relief grants, Obama back to school grants, Obama grants for moms, and any other kind of Obama government stimulus grants that they are now entitled to and can get. The truth is that there is very little out there for the average person that wasn’t there before Obama got elected.

There are new amounts available for Pell Grants but it is not that much more than before and it hardly keeps pace with inflation. Certainly the increase doesn’t match how much college tuition is going up across the country. Anyone can apply for these school grants and may even be lucky enough to get one. But is Obama just giving away $10,000 for anyone to go back to school like these ads want you to believe? Nope, not even close.

People may be wondering whether there are any new Obama grants or stimulus money that becomes available in 2010. Everyone is searching for Obama school grants and other things they might get from the government that will help them out financially. Times are tough for a lot of people and they are hoping that Obama and the government can help out.

To my knowledge though, there are no new Obama stimulus grants programs for individuals that kick in during 2010. Nothing has changed since 2009 and it remains very hard for individual people to get any kind of special financial aid from the government. Right now there is a lot of chaos in Washington as so much emphasis was made on health care reform and now it looks like that is on hold. Ever since the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, emphasis has shifted away from ObamaCare.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama said he was going to concentrate on jobs as that is where the most need is. Of course he is right that there is a jobs crisis in this country but what can the government really do? Raising taxes on everyone who earns more than $250,000 means that taxes are being raised on most small businesses. Doesn’t Mr. Obama understand that small businesses is where many of the jobs come from and that raising taxes on those businesses will mean more people have to be laid off?

You still have to be careful in 2010 when you are searching for debt relief grants and any other information relating to back to school grants for moms and other things associated with Obama and the stimulus bill. If you have questions about grants you should go to Grants.gov as that is the official government website. Likewise if you are interested in the stimulus recovery you should go to the official website Recovery.gov. It should be known though, that those two websites might be hard to understand and navigate for the average citizen looking for any stimulus grants help.

2010 looks like it is going to be a rough year financially for many people in the United States just like 2009 was. Whether President Obama’s programs and policies will lead to more jobs and a better America has yet to be determined. Right now though, all you can do is be thrifty with your money and hope for the best.

The Internet is a great resource and it brings so much information right to our fingertips. But sometimes it can be confusing and it can be hard to find exactly what you are looking for. President Obama is in office and many people are now interested in college financial aid and other financial aid grant programs. Where does one go to find out more information about such things in the year 2010? Well…they go to the Internet of course.

The usual thing to do is to go to Google and do a search for “Obama financial aid” or “financial aid for college” or whatever you are specifically looking for. You will then get the top ten results listed on the first page. The problem is that many times these results are dubious and confusing and often they are downright useless.

People need money and they need debt help. They voted for a new President in hopes that they could get some financial aid from Obama and the government. They are now turning to the Internet to find out what is available and what they are finding is very little information that they can actually use and understand.

As an example, I looked for Obama financial aid information and found almost nothing of any use. This goes to show why people get confused and don’t know where to turn to get accurate information on stimulus grants, Obama moms back to school grants, and other things that might help them out financially.

Of the first 10 results for Obama financial aid, I found only one site that was really of any use (ED.gov) and the others where all articles or blog posts that didn’t help at all. No wonder people find it hard to get real information and end up so easily scammed when they start looking for new Obama grants and other ways to possibly profit from the new government stimulus bill.

Government programs are difficult to understand for everyone and there is always alot of wording that you have to sift through. While Obama government grants are free, the process of finding them, qualifying for them, and apply for them is a very difficult thing for a regular person to do. This leaves the door open for other companies to come in and try to get your business by offering to help. Unfortunately, sometimes some of these companies are less than honest.

If you are looking for Obama financial aid or grants of any type, it is smart to be careful what you sign up for and who you give your credit card to. Always read the fine print which includes the privacy information as well as the terms & conditions for each and every website. This is where you will find the hidden charges if there are any. If at any time you feel uncomfortable with what you are reading, you should go somewhere else and not use their services.

The U.S. government has set up a website to keep track of where all the Obama stimulus money is going. All it takes is one look at the website (Recovery.gov) and you will realize the magnitude of the giveaway. A person can literally spend hours on the site as it is a very complex and detailed setup of graphs, charts, and links. 

All the Obama free money is going somewhere and this is the place to find out who is getting what in terms of loans and grants. You need to navigate the site by the tabs at the top of the page and the one of most interest is the one titled “Where Is The Money Going”. This leads you to a map of the United States that you can use to focus in on any part of the country you want and to find out what businesses and colleges are getting and how much.

The map is quite slick really as it is peppered with different colored dots which represent either Obama stimulus loans, Obama stimulus grants, or Obama stimulus contracts. Some of them seem to be debt relief grants for businesses that have stumbled on hard times. You can then click on the dot and get more information such as how much it was for and to what business entity it went to. The map has so many dots that they often overlap and in the populated cities it is difficult to see them individually. If you have ever wondered just how many agencies, local governments, businesses, colleges and other entities are getting stimulus help, Recovery.gov is the place to go. 

There are a lot of other resources on the site as well that may or may not answer the questions you have. The map is fun at first but it does become tiresome to navigate and I tried unsuccessfully to find some sort of list that would lay out all the information in a more user friendly searchable format. The amount of information on the website can be overwhelming and it illustrates how far reaching the governments role has become in distributing our tax dollars.

This Recovery.gov website is supposed to be the window of transparency between the government and the general public with the intent of making sure there is no doubt to the legitimacy of the Obama stimulus money program. The amount of money being distributed to across the country is unpresidented and there have been a lot of doubters to the process. If you have any doubts of your own, you should make sure to take a look at the site and see if it helps you understand what is happening and diminishes any of your doubts.

You will see these debt relief grants scams all over the place and they will try to get you to sign up for a free kit or some other information package they will send you for $1.97 shipping or some other small amount. What you won’t see because it is in the “terms and conditions” or just the ‘terms” is that if you don’t call and cancel within 5 or 7 days, you will then be charged anywhere from $49.99 up to $99.99 EVERY MONTH. This is all in the fine print so most people miss it.

Many people have reported that when you do call up to cancel, you are given a hard time or the number phone number doesn’t even work. There might also be additional charges on top of the one I just mentioned. In the end, it becomes a nightmare for many as they scramble to get these charges reversed and stop any future charges from happening.

People are unfamiliar with government grants and so many people erroneously think there are additional Obama government grants just because of the stimulus bill. This has meant the interest in grants have skyrocketed and many people are trying to cash in and profit. Government grant scams have popped up all over and many people are being tricked into signing up and they have no idea they will be charged later until it is too late.

These grant scams all appear to be endorsed by CNN, FOX, MSN and other big news organizations because they include their logo on the ads. However, this is not true and none of these news services have ever, to my knowledge, endorsed any of these scammers.

There is also something just out called Google Money Grants. This is also a scam and this product is not even about grants but they are trying to trick you into thinking the product is endorsed by Google. Google has nothing to do with this Money Grants kit and the kit is just a fake make money online get rich scam anyway.