Staff Writer Auditions from Past GRS Contributors

As the audition process for GRS staff writers continues, I’m looking for ways to streamline things a bit. Today, for instance, I’m going to share three candidates in one post.

All three of these writers have shared articles at Get Rich Slowly in the past. All three asked me to reprint their past articles as audition pieces. But doing so has prompted some readers to complain. To please everyone, I’m collecting all of their articles here, in a single post.

These three folks are all legitimate candidates for a staff writer position, so I encourage you to take the time to read their stuff. It’s good!

Louisa Rogers
First up is Louisa Rogers, who has shared four articles with us in the past (three of which were reader stories):

Reader story: Even better than enough
“I just turned 59. Most of my peers have accumulated much more than my husband and I have. I don’t envy them. We love our cozy, $695/month 750-square-foot apartment, which allowed us to buy and remodel an old house in Mexico. We travel a lot and never worry about theft when away from either home. Having Enough frees me from worry — but not having Too Much also frees me from worry.”

Reader story: A fresh start on the path to prosperity
“The downside of my particular brand of frugality is the stinginess that comes with it. I’m not saying this is true of all frugal types, but generosity isn’t my strong suit. I’ve been working on this “issue” (as we say these days) for awhile. Over time, I began to sense that before I could find my generosity gene, there was another step I needed to take.”

Reader story: Living on less in Mexico
“In 2006, my husband and I bought a house in the center of Guanajuato, a city in Mexico’s Central Highlands, where we live about one-third of the year. We didn’t buy the house because it’s a cheaper place to live; we were motivated because we’d been visiting this town for five years and fell in love with it anew every time we came. Despite the fact that we live pretty simply in the States, it’s less expensive in Guanajuato. Here are some of the ways we save.”

Health is wealth: The best investment I ever made
“As a middle-aged fitness junkie, I’m always interested in what motivates people to get in shape. Typically, folks say they want to lose weight, tone their bodies, and slow the aging process. But there’s another major reason to get fit that I rarely hear discussed — saving money. Fitness alone doesn’t guarantee reduced health care costs, of course, but it sure increases the odds. In my case, although I grew up overweight and out-of-shape, around the age of twenty I started becoming active, and now, at sixty, I’m finding that years of accumulated fitness are — literally — money in the bank.”

Michael Robertson
Next is Michael Robertson, who is sailing the seas with is wife and two daughters. (Read more about their adventures at the Log of s/v Del Viento.)

Direct stock purchase plans: A better way to invest
“For the small investor who is ready to buy individual shares of a particular company, a direct stock purchase plan may be the smartest and most thrifty way to do so.”

Sailing away from the American Dream
“I’m a healthy 42-year-old family man with a fine little house and a secure job with a salary that just made it over the six-digit milestone. I’m fortunate beyond measure, deep into the American Dream. In a few months — if everything goes according to plan — my life as it is today will be gone: I’ll be unemployed, another family will own our home, and the four of us will be on the road to Mexico in our Ford Escort station-wagon.”

Karawynn Long
Finally, there’s Karawynn Long, who has been blogging since long before “blog” was even a word. In fact, she was one of the prime reasons I started blogging myself. Here are her three past GRS articles:

Discovering and challenging your financial values
“I have two kids, stepdaughters aged ten and sixteen, and I desperately want to send them out into the world with all the financial context that I lacked. Part of that means active teaching of skills and concepts, like how to plan meals around grocery loss leader sales, or why forty years of compounded interest is more than twice as good as twenty. Part of it means creating a culture in our home where money is not a taboo subject, where we talk openly about wages and savings and expenses and debt. And part of it, I hope, means being a living example.”

A visit to the island of misfit foods
“About a mile from my house there’s a slightly shabby strip mall housing a Dollar Store, a Ross Dress for Less, and something called a ‘Grocery Outlet’. For two years I’ve driven past that sign — on my way to Costco, Fred Meyer, and Trader Joe’s — without ever giving it a second thought. I’ll pick through thrift-store racks for clothes, sure, but I’m a snob about food, and ‘Grocery Outlet’ smacked of discards and dregs. After six months of only part-time employment and a pared-down budget, though, I start eyeing the sign more speculatively. One day I gather up my cloth bags and my determination and head over to expand my grocery comfort zone.”

Furniture shopping secrets: How to tell superior from shoddy
“I’ve mostly gone for Ikea ‘cheap and new’ furniture in the past, but I’ve been disappointed by its (understatement alert!) lack of durability. This time I’d like to try buying used but higher-quality. As I began to look around, though, I realized that I knew very little about what makes for a strong, long-lasting piece of furniture.”

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