Real help exists. Here's where it actually is.

If you need help right now

Food, shelter, or bills you can’t cover this month. Start with these two, they route you to local help fastest:

• United Way, dial 211 or visit the site. One call connects you to food, housing, utility, and crisis help in your own county. If you only use one resource on this page, use this one.
• Feeding America, enter your zip code and it finds the food bank nearest you. No paperwork to browse.

More help, depending on what you need:

• Salvation Army, emergency shelter, utility help, addiction recovery
• Catholic Charities USA, rent, food, and family services regardless of faith
• Habitat for Humanity, affordable homeownership and critical home repairs
• Convoy of Hope, disaster relief and community feeding programs
• Covenant House, housing and support for young people facing homelessness
• The National Coalition for the Homeless, advocacy and local resource directories
• Goodwill Industries, job training and low-cost goods

Outside the US: 85+ food banks in the UK, Canada, and Australia (Website Planet, 2023).

Medical bills and prescriptions

Medical debt is the largest driver of bankruptcy in America. Before you put care on a credit card, check these:

• GoodRx, free coupons that regularly cut prescription prices in half or better. Use it even if you have insurance, sometimes the coupon beats your copay.
• NeedyMeds and RxAssist, directories of drug-maker assistance programs that provide medications free or nearly free if you qualify.
• HealthWell Foundation and PAN Foundation, help with copays, premiums, and out-of-pocket costs for chronic and serious conditions.
• St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, families never receive a bill for a child’s treatment, travel, housing, or food.
• Shriners Children’s, care is provided regardless of a family’s ability to pay, and financial assistance covers costs insurance doesn’t.
• The Assistance Fund, disease-specific financial assistance
• American Cancer Society and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, patient support, lodging, and rides to treatment

And while you’re here: understanding how health insurance actually works is free, and it’s the difference between a plan that protects you and one that just costs you.

Free ways to learn (and earn more)

The fastest way out of a tight budget is usually a new skill. All of these are genuinely free:

• Khan Academy, the gold standard for free education, kindergarten through college level
• Coursera and edX, real university courses; free to learn, pay only if you want the certificate
• MIT OpenCourseWare, Open Yale, and Stanford Online, complete courses from schools you’d never have to apply to
• Code.org and Codecademy, learn to code from zero
• Duolingo, languages, free forever
• Alison, free workplace-skill courses (the official certificate is a paid extra, like Coursera)

The full list of 25 free learning sites is in Newsweek’s roundup. For budgeting tools specifically, PocketGuard and YNAB are the two I hear the most good about, YNAB is paid after the free trial, though college students get a full year free.

When you’re ready to go deeper on money itself, my investing education is free and always on this site.

For military families

• Wounded Warrior Project, programs for post-9/11 wounded veterans
• USO, support for service members and their families worldwide

For children and families

• Boys Town, crisis care and a 24/7 parenting hotline
• Boys and Girls Clubs of America and YMCA, safe, affordable youth programs
• Big Brothers Big Sisters, mentorship that measurably changes outcomes
• Make-A-Wish and Toys for Tots, joy when families need it most
• Scholarship America and Step Up for Students, education funding
• Leveling The Playing Field, a 501(c)(3) working to help people of color and economically disadvantaged families prosper physically, spiritually, and financially, a mission close to Prosperity Club’s own

Give wisely

If you’re in a position to give instead of receive, good, but give with your eyes open:

• Charity Navigator rates charities on how much of your dollar reaches the mission, including lesser-known charities with perfect scores.
• GuideStar lets you read any nonprofit’s actual finances before you give.
• Forbes’ top charities list has tracked the biggest and most effective for decades, much of this page started from their work.
• And the other side: Money Inc.’s list of the worst charities, organizations that spend nearly everything on fundraising and salaries. Check before you give.

A word from Deborah

Lists help, but they can’t look at your whole picture. If money is tight, the order matters: stabilize first (the resources above), then protect what you have, then build. If you’re not sure which step you’re on, the free five-minute needs analysis will show you, and if you’d rather just talk it through with a person, that’s what I’m here for.

Contact me here