Beware of pay day loans, quick loans, cash advances, etc.
How to stop being a slave to debt.

• taking in and doing their laundry once a week for the next four weeks (or four months, whatever),
• spending a day cleaning out their garage or basement,
• child care or adult-care for the next 14, 30 or 60 days,
• dog walking,
• house cleaning,
• driving someone to doctor's appointments, hair appointments, etc.
• putting together a garage sale, taking care of every aspect of marketing (posting to Craigslist, putting up signs), setup, tear-down and staffing the event, in return for half of all money raised

• Housing - rent or mortgage payments (would it be cheaper to move to a smaller, cheaper apartment? Do you really need a house with two bathrooms and four bedrooms and a huge yard?)
• Telephone - landline (good idea to get rid of this if you have a cell phone or smart phone)
• Telephone - smart phone or cell phone
• Water (you don't need to take a shower or wash your hair every day, you really don't; you shouldn't run water while you are brushing your teeth; and, you don't need to water your lawn once every week)
• Electricity (be vigilant about turning the lights off every time you leave a room, and unplug your TV or use a power strip and turn it off every time you leave your home; most appliances suck a bit of electricity even when they are off)
• Gas for transportation (walk or ride your bike whenever possible, certainly for any trip within a mile of your house)
• Garbage (could you downgrade to a smaller garbage can? Also, start a compost heap to further reduce the amount of garbage the city needs to pick up and that you have to pay for)
• Lawn maintenance (could you mow your lawn less and save on gas? or turn more of your yard into food-growing, which uses less water than a lawn?)
• Health Insurance (if you don't have this, you should still be saving at least $100 a month into a savings account only to help pay for health costs that might arise)
• Health costs not covered by insurance
• Car payment
• Car insurance
• Car maintenance (oil changes, etc.)
• Debt payments (credit cards, loans)
• Tuition (for yourself and any other family members)
• Student Fees (for yourself and any other family members)
• Books
• Meal Plan
• Parking Permit
• Groceries
• Transportation (gas, repairs, tolls, bus, etc.)
• Laundry (if done outside the home)
• Unplanned / emergency expenses: new tire, roof repairs, etc.
• Payment into your Roth IRA or other retirement (the maximum contribution into this each year is $5500, and it is an essential expense, not an extraneous one)
  

• Professionally-done haircuts (if you are doing these every month, make it every other month, at least - every two months is even better)
  
• Professional manicures or pedicures
  
• Cable TV, Direct TV, NetFlix, etc.
• Dining Out
• Ornamental gardening
• New clothes
• Jewelry
• New electronics (new computer, new TV, new appliances, etc.)
• New car (and when you are in a position to get a car, go for used, not new)
• new DVD rentals or purchases (borrow from friends, rent from the library, visit your ReStore)

More advice:

• Cut up your credit cards. Don't use them until you are completely out of debt and, once you are out of debt, you can have ONE card. Only one.
• Have a yard sale. Have them regularly.
  
• Sell your books at a place that buys used books.
• When you go to the grocery, look for cheaper alternatives for toilet paper, paper towels, dishwashing liquid, or any bulk food items (rice, noodles, coffee, etc.). Go with generic brands of anything whenever possible. You could save at least $50 a month that way -  more if you have a large family.
• Walk or ride your bike for any errands within two miles of your house. The inital investment in a bike lock and getting your bicycle maintained and ready to ride will pay off in just a few weeks in terms of gas savings. Don't have a bike? Ask neighbors if they have one they wouldn't mind giving away.
  
• Switch your bank account to a credit union if you aren't using such already. Go in person to do this and ask questions like what savings account will give you the highest yield. You want to keep $50 in this to start, and then try to put even just $5 into it every month.
  

Follow all of that advice, and you will have at least $2000 more every year than you have now - probably even a few thousand dollars more. That's thousands of dollars you don't have to pay back to anyone, that you get to use to pay off your debt or use for other expenses. 

In case you were wondering my experience with all of this: I was in more than $65,000 in debt in 1998, all owed to credit card companies. I was getting killed on interest rates. Using a lot of the strategies above, including going car-less for four years, I was out of it by 2002. It meant saying "No" a lot to friends who wanted to go out to eat (but not always). But it also meant I learned to cook (I didn't know how!) and that re-learned how to enjoy myself by reading, hiking, and playing with my dogs, and spending time with people I care about in much more meaningful ways - all of us cooking together, or watching a TV show or movie together, sharing a pizza together. When I did budget a movie or a dinner out or a concert into a month, I ended up cherishing those experiences so much more. All this work got me out of debt, and I have stayed out of debt, but I still live in a lot of the same ways I did when I was in debt, and life is SO much better!

Web sites that offer free info to help you with debt, as well as preparing a budget:

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - Your Money, Your Goals, a US government agency set up specifically because of the predatory business practices that lead to the financial downfall in 2009.
• Clark Howard's advice on personal finance & credit
  
• Suze Orman's debt reduction tools
• Dave Ramsey's budgeting forms, get-out-of-debt advice, etc.
• National Endowment for Financial Education, a nonprofit organization that offers a range of free resources on its web site to help people from all walks of life with financial health. It provides practical articles, financial calculators, quizzes, worksheets, money-saving tips, discussion forums and other valuable resources.

And get your children and teens involved in JumpStart financial literacy activities, so that they never end up in debt. 

This web page of information for teens regarding taxes, which includes a long list of links to other sites with information, is from a company that prepares taxes. It's one of the best curated lists anywhere of financial information for teens.