The Get Rich Slowly Writing Project: Share Your Story for a Chance to Win a Wii
Published on - October 14th, 2007 (by J.D. Roth) Get Rich Slowly turns eighteen this week! Eighteen months, that is.
While this blog is toddling around and learning to speak, I thought it might be fun to celebrate by giving something back to the readers. To that end, I’m holding a week of contests. I have over $600 in prizes to give away, including a Nintendo Wii.
- On Monday (Blog Action Day), I’ll be giving away a nature print from photographer (and GRS reader) Andrea Gingerich. Andrea’s work is amazing. Visit her site for another chance to win one of her prints.
- On Tuesday, I’ll be featuring a guest-post from Michael Mihalik, author of Debt is Slavery (reviewed here a couple months ago). I’ll give away two copies of his book.
- The folks at Intuit were kind enough to pass along three copies of Quicken Deluxe 2008. These are the prizes for Wednesday.
- On Thursday, I’ll be giving away a brand-new 1gb silver iPod Shuffle.
- To cap things off, next Friday I’ll be give away a Nintendo Wii bundle. The contest for the Wii actually begins today, however. Read on.
To enter the first four contests, you’ll need to contribute a substantive comment to a specific post on the day in question. (By substantive I mean a comment that adds to the conversation, not something like “I want to win the book!”) To have a chance at winning the Wii, you’ll need to join the first-ever Get Rich Slowly writing project: I want you to share your personal finance success story.
Have you escaped minimum wage? Have you paid off your debt? Did you drive a hard bargain at the car dealership? Have you given up credit? Is your mortgage paid off? Have you learned to cook at home? Write about your biggest financial achievement. Whatever it is, tell us your story. One lucky participant will be chosen at random to win a Nintendo Wii with Mario Party 8 and an extra controller.

There are two ways to share your story:
- If you have a blog, write an entry sharing your personal finance success story. Make it fun. Make it interesting. Make it inspirational. When you’ve finished, drop me a line with URL. While I’d be happy if you linked back to Get Rich Slowly, it’s not a requirement. Next Saturday, I’ll post links to all bloggers who shared stories.
- If you don’t have a blog, you may enter the contest in the Success Stories forum at the Get Rich Slowly message board. (To register, you’ll need to use the VIP code 0325.) While you’re there, be sure to join the discussions in the other forums.
You may enter only once per daily contest, and only until 1:00 a.m. Pacific Friday, October 19th. Sometime on Friday, I will randomly select one person to win the Nintendo Wii. At that time, I’ll also make drawings for the other prizes.
(If this group writing project is successful, there will be others in the future. I can’t afford to subsidize the prizes every time, so I’d be happy to hear offers from potential project sponsors.)
Contest Rules
You can find full contest rules here. Legal mumbo-jumbo makes my brain numb, so here’s the abridged version:
- No purchase is necessary to participate in these contests. Purchase will not improve your chance of winning.
- All winners must be 18 years of age or older.
- These contests are open to participants outside the U.S., but in all cases are void where prohibited by law.
- Winners will chosen at random from valid submissions.
- I am the sole arbiter of what constitutes a “valid submission”. If you’re participating in the spirit of the contest, your submission is probably valid. (In other words: blogspam and one-line “stories” are no way to enter this contest.)
- In order to win, I have to be able to contact you. If you participate, please use a valid e-mail address. I will never harvest your e-mail address for any nefarious purpose. Also, winners will need to supply a mailing address so I can ship their prize.
- There are no prize substitutions. The Wii is a North America-region Wii. If you win and you’re from Germany, for example, you are responsible for making the system work.
- All prizes are provided as-is. They’re new now, but Get Rich Slowly is not responsible for any problems you may have with them.
- Finally — and this is important — by participating in these contests, you agree to allow Get Rich Slowly to republish what you write, either on the blog or in other contexts.
These giveaways are being conducted in the spirit of fun. Please treat them as such. If things go smoothly, there will be other giveaways in the future!
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Well, JD, I haven’t commented much, but I love your writing and all the wonderful tips and ideas you always offer. I saw the contest, and knew that I had to enter. I really want to get a Wii for my sister for Christmas, so I figured I might as well try for your contest. Heck, the worst thing that could happen is that I don’t get picked, and then I’m simply back where I started!
So thanks again for your great writing, and here is my post/entry about my “success” story: http://haeli.vox.com/library/post/well-i-think-ive-been-more-successful-financially-at-least.html
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[...] finance that makes cents Win a Nintendo Wii! Share your pesonal finance success story with the Get Rich Slowly writing project for your chance to win. « The Spending Plan: Budgeting for Non-Budgeters | [...]
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Wow! I have been lurking for a while. Sounds like fun!
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Hello!
For a chance to win a Wii, we need to write a personal finances success story. Now, where do we drop you a line about our story?
Here is the link to mine:
http://internationalfreebies.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-contest-wii.html
If that’s not enough, I’ll send you an email.
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I e-mailed but want to make sure I’m counted in the contest, my post is at http://goodbyedebt.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-biggest-financial-achievement.html
Mine is: Spending Less Than I Make, No Matter What
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Here is the link to my story on my blog:
http://pfmoron.blogspot.com/2007/10/getting-control-of-my-personal-finances.html
Thank you very much for all of your hard work and this opportunity.
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Here’s the link to my story. I want that Wii!
http://thetoughbroad.blogspot.com/2007/10/wii-success-story.html
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Here’s the link to my story at my blog. My personal finance success story
This is a great contest and wound up being a really nice way for me to organize my thoughts on the topic.
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Nice site. I drop by occasionally. I’m 24 years old and just got married. We both are working and trying to save as much as possible. I just graduated from college in May of 2006 and I just paid off two of my school loans last week ($5,000). I also just opened a Roth ira and both my wife and I are contributing a significant amount to our 401(k)’s. I do have more school loans to plow down but I’m ready for the challenge. Anyways, I’ll be reading.
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Here is my blog entry. Hope you enjoy reading about what has made me financially successful.
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Here ya’ go.
http://vixenonabudget.blogspot.com/2007/10/personal-success-story.html
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I posted my story here:
http://windersnest.blogspot.com/2007/10/personal-finance-success.html
Thanks for the awesome contest! A Wii has been on my wishlist since it came out!
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For the Wii contest:
We needed to trade in our 2-door car for a 4-door model when our first child was born. The dealership wanted about $2500 for the trade, and that was simply too much for us. My husband and I tag-teamed it, playing a good cop/bad cop type of routine and having a “fight” in front of the salesman about our finances. The guys there got to know us and like us. When the dealer was on the phone, I made sure he overheard me ask my husband, “how much can I get for selling a pint of blood?” The guy almost dropped the phone. After two visits and a lot of well-played drama, my husband (who lives by the motto “you can negotiate anything”) got him down by more than 50%. This saved us a ton of money and we do stuff like this all the time, whenever we get the chance. Our friends have even asked if they could hire us out to negotiate the purchase of their new cars.
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[...] This post was written as a part of the group writing project for Get Rich Slowly. [...]
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[...] this- My humble submission to the Get Rich Slowly writing project. Winning the contest would be cool, but I’m happy to participate just because I’m a big [...]
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Here is a link to my story:
http://apennycloser.com/2007/10/18/a-new-car-on-our-terms/
Great idea for a contest! Looking forward to reading the entries on Saturday.
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Thanks so much for what you do here! I just stumbled on your blog a few days ago and have added the feed to my Google Reader. I can tell it takes a lot of time for you to get these posts researched and posted.
I could not possibly tell you which article I like the best because I have gained so much from so many, already! I like the articles that are practical application. Just today, you shared about housing size. It was practical! You gave specific examples, which I could apply to myself.
I don’t get as excited about investing… at least not yet, anyway. Although my son is investing, we haven’t yet made it to the point of being able to get that going.
As for the frequency? I like the amount you post currently.
Thanks again for all you do!
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[...] Disclosure: I submitted this article to Get Rich Slowly’s 18-month anniversary group writing project [...]
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[...] Rich Slowly is holding a contest asking for people to submit their financial success stories. With this in mind, I began to reflect on where I am today in my experience with [...]
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Just found your blog this morning and I have subscribed.
In truth I subscribed to your ideas on financial freedom about two years ago.
We are bombarded by the media with images of what successful people are like. 99% of the time they are the immature movie and rock stars that we see on Cribs driving 6 vehicles all over $100,000. You nailed it, what we are shown is not the whole story, only what sells.
Financial freedom has become a catch phrase with about as much definition as the term money management in public schools.
Thank you for being confident enough to write about the simple basics, that gets tossed for lack of glitz and glamore!
For years I had locked myself in financial limbo because I had no real education in that area. I sat by and watch myself use a approaching divorce become my excuse for doing nothing, actually falling hard financially. I made it through the divorce with out a bankruptcy but lost a house and car to foreclosure. Within two years after I was debt free and testing the self-employment waters to boost my income. Amazing enough I soon found myself making the same mistakes again. My relationship was failing and I was in debt playing with credit cards to stop the collectors from calling.
Hitting bottom the first time only taught me that I didn’t like the feeling of being out of control. That much I could pick up on my own. What I was missing was purpose and someone to reinforce the simple truths.
I will leave those simple truths to you but there is one more thing that made a big difference in my progress.
There are problems that come up in life that set us back financially and in other ways. If we do not find a place for the bad luck it will consume you.
Once I truly took responsibility for my misfortunes, that I been leaning as an excuse as to why I was so far behind, things started to change.
Currently I am patiently building toward financial freedom. I have one small loan to pay off this spring, no credit cars or card balances, and my income has climbed almost $6,000 in the last two years. I maintain my day job for the security and benefits while I teach night class in the area that I hope to build my business. If I can not have everything that I want right now, I will enjoy learning and building a foundation for what it is that may be “everything that I want”.
I still get frustrated watching Cadillac commercials and seeing 20 year olds driving brand new cars. On good days I turn that frustration into reinforcement that I am confident in the plan that I have set in motion and the commercials and kids in new cars remind me of my mistakes. I soon feel sorry for them and proud of myself.
(on bad days I take twenty bucks and reward myself at a few yard sales)
Thanks for the financial love!
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J.D., I did a post on this here. It wasn’t really meant to be an entry, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be, I guess.
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I hope that your readers are not only socking it to their debt but also saving for retirement. The shocking statistics of how many fail to plan for their future should scare us into motion. I implore the public to contact a good financial adviser to see what they can do to reach financial independence.
Thanks for the great site – you are an inspiration to so many of us!
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JD, long time reader, first time writer. you have a way of getting someone to come out of their shell. i am a twenty something making minimum wage in a midwestern town. I don’t save as much as i should primarily because my rent takes most of my paycheck! But i am still able to sock away $30 per month into a ROTH IRA. I know it isn’t much, but it is my best bet for now and the account is slowly but surely gaining for me, hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up in the future! thank you.
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[...] to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Thanks to everyone who participated during last week’s 18-month anniversary celebration. I was surprised at the number and quality of comments you shared over the past few days. I’m [...]
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