How can I get free or really cheap business cards made?

My husband is starting his own business.. and I was wanting to know if there was a way to get free or really cheap business cards made.And, does anyone know if there are easy government grants given to people for starting up a business even if they have bad credit?

With regards to business cards, I would go with Vistaprint http://www.vistaprint.com as they offer free business cards and all you pay is shipping. Note though that the "free" business cards have an imprint at the back advertising Vistaprint. If you don't mind sharing your business card with another company, then use Vistaprint

With regards for grants, you are better off devoting your resources to finding alternative sources of capital to start your business. It is hard to find grants to start a business. Unlike the myths that some perpetuate, federal government and even private foundations hardly give grant money for a for-profit business. And yes, grants mean PAPERWORK - lots and lots of it, that is why a cottage industry of grant writers was born.

Nonetheless, you can go to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) http://www.cfda.gov and Grants.gov http://www.grants.gov - these are two sites created by the federal government to provide transparency and information on grants. Browse through the listings and see if you can find any grant that would support a for-profit venture.

Even if you buy books on "how to get grants" or list that supposedly has information on grants -- all of them are mere rehash of what CFDA has, albeit packaged differently. But still the info is the same - hardly any grants for starting a for profit business.

Even SBA does NOT give out grants. From the SBA website http://www.sba.gov/expanding/grants.html...

"The U.S. Small Business Administration does not offer grants to start or expand small businesses, although it does offer a wide variety of loan programs. (See http://www.sba.gov/financing for more information) While SBA does offer some grant programs, these are generally designed to expand and enhance organizations that provide small business management, technical, or financial assistance. These grants generally support non-profit organizations, intermediary lending institutions, and state and local governments."

Here is a listing of federal grants for small businesses. See if there is any available for individuals for starting a business -- THERE'S NONE.
http://12.46.245.173/pls/portal30/CATALOG.BROWSE_BENEF_RPT.show

Most of the federal grants are given to specific target groups with specific requirements (e.g. minority business owners involved in transportation related contracts emanating from DOT - Grant#20.905 Disadvantaged Business Enterprises Short Term Lending Program

Grants are also often given to non profit groups or organizations involved in training or other similar activities (grant 59.043 Women's Business Ownership Assistance that are given to those who will create women's business center that will train women entrepreneurs

For private grants, you may want to check the Foundation Center's Foundation Grants for Individuals Online. It's a subscription based website ($9.95 per month) but their opening blurb only says that the database is ideal for "students, artists, academic researchers, libraries and financial aid offices." Entrepreneurs are apparently not one of them, so I take it they also don't have listings of private foundations who give grants to would-be entrepreneurs.

Make them yourself... it's cheap and, pretty easy if you're computer savvy.

www.vistaprint.com offers 2,000 free b-cards and a 100 other free products you may find useful. I had a coupon I received from an Amazon order. I will look for it. Go to the site first, see if they offer them free. Then go to Amazon, see if they have the coupon there. If not goggle for the coupons. In the meantime, I will look for mine.

Also eBay has services that offer b-cards for cheep...check ratings for quality.

http://vistaprint.com will provide you 250 business cards for free if you pay shipping and handling. These free cards are of satisfactory quality, you even design them yourself using their template on the internet. The catch is that they put their emblem on the back-side of the card.
How-ever, I offer a serious word of warning: http://ripoffreport.com has 116 complaints against vistaprint. Yet, I've seen people on this forum say that they have had wonderful experiences with vistaprint. I would think that any business that deals with hundreds of thousands of customers would get 116 complaints. I feel responsible to give you both sides of this answer. Good luck in what-ever you decide!

Try the club flyer places in Florida. You can get really good pricing on 4-color, heavy-stock cards (vertical and horizontal).

hotcards.com has 1000 cards (4-color 2 sides) for $60. You can also try clubflyers.com.

Make your own. Buy card stock at any Walmart. Microsoft Word has programs with templates for business card. The card stock is just thick printer paper.

i just wrote possibly the most usefull thing ive ever written considering i work in government funding and grants and i spent 3 years making business cards in a printers when i was 17ish.

But i deleted it all! by mistake of course

tell the printers they can print - 'printed by So and So printers - Some Place' on the back and then theyll knock the price down half. Or just be nice - i used to give away discounts too much

overnment grants- im not going into again ! :(

Can't help you with grants, but you can just pick up some biz-card sheets at Office Max, go to Avery's Web site and download their Wizard. It'll let you design your cards right in Word.

Just make sure to buy the clean-edge style of cards, as they'll just snap off cleanly at the edges rather than leave you with the fuzzy perforations.

www.VistaPrint.com is really the best source - or, like others have already said, make your own. That's a sure way to have an original design! :)

The cheapest way -
You can purchase business card stock paper at a WalMart or Staples - then inside the pkg should be instructions for set up on your computer.

If you have Microsoft Word - go to TOOLS - you can use the set up for Envelopes & Labels in there - there is a spot on the right hand side where you can pick or add the ID # of the paper/labels that you bought so it lines up correctly when you print them out.

I order business cards for some of my employees from a certain company myself -
they are very reasonably priced. I will get back to you with the contact info tomorrow as I do not have it with me. I used to use a different company - but they made too many mistakes. The company I now use & will give you tomorrow is much better.

Make them your self on your computer; and/or you can go to office max or something of that sort, sometimes you can by the paper at Wal-mart.

cardboard and a crayon

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