This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman.
A college professor once told my journalism class that freelance writing is something you should do on the side. It’s not anything you could make a living at full-time. 
I graduated and worked at an office job until I decided I wanted to become self-employed and do something that would give me more free time to write. A real job and a writer on the side, just like the professor had suggested. I went into real estate.
To say it was an awful fit would be an understatement. The very thought of cold-calling made me want to stay in bed with the covers over my head. What’s worse is that I wrote a total of one article that year. What in the world happened?
“Freelance writing can’t be a successful business.” That was my limiting belief. (To be fair, it was a belief I held long before the well-meaning professor reinforced [...]

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” — Aristotle

For a long time, I was unhappy. I used to think that this was because of my overwhelming debt. I believed that if I were debt-free, happiness would come to me. It didn’t.
After I paid off my consumer debt, I was still unhappy. “Maybe it’s my job,” I thought. I’d always hated working for the family box factory; it had been a job of last resort, and I’d never shaken free of it.
But even after I quit my day job, happiness remained elusive. I now know that some of this was due to low-level depression. I’ve also come to understand that part of the problem was that I expected money to solve my problems. I expected money to make me happy. Money and happiness, however, are mostly unrelated. That’s just not how it works.
Happier
While beginning to research [...]

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. This article is particularly relevant to my own circumstances as I begin work on my book project. I’ve been procrastinating. A lot. In fact, I liked April’s piece so much I’ve delayed my own article that I had scheduled to run this morning.
I like to say that I write well under pressure, and to a degree, it’s true. Nevertheless, most writers would agree that writing is often an uncomfortable process filled with self-doubt. It’s human nature to avoid pain and discomfort, and I know my fears are the underlying reason that I sometimes find myself furiously writing at the 11th hour.
Everyone can relate to the act of avoiding an unpleasant task, and we all know that hardest part is just getting started. Writing the first five words. Sorting the first load of laundry. Adding up your total debt.
Once I overcome inertia and actually pick up the proverbial [...]

In June, a user at Ask Metafilter wondered: What are the differences between someone who makes $100,000/year and someone who makes $30,000? As you might expect, this question generated a lot of discussion — all of it interesting.
Many commenters noted that, from their experience, high-income earners generally exhibited several of the following traits:

They maintain a strong work ethic.
They don’t watch the clock.
They seek to improve their skills.
They do quality work.
They’re flexible and adaptable.
They maintain a good social network.
They possess self-confidence.

A few commenters noted that there are two other factors that absolutely play a role in how much a person earns. Chief among these is choice of profession. Even if you’re the best damn high school physics teacher in the world, you’ll still probably earn just $50,000 or so. (But if that gives you a fulfilling life, that’s probably worth more than a high salary.)
Hard work, etc. do not guarantee a higher salary — but [...]

This is a guest post from Karawynn, who writes about personal finance at Pocketmint. Karawynn is a potential Staff Writer for Get Rich Slowly. In her first article, she visited the Island of Misfit Foods. Karawynn has been blogging since before “blogging” was a word.
My parents taught me nothing about money management. My dad opened a checking account for me in high school and showed me how to use the checkbook register. Beyond that, I was on my own. I never had any clue how much money my parents made, and very little sense of how much most things cost. Taxes and loans and bills and credit were all vague mysteries. Mortgages and retirement accounts weren’t even on my radar. My family simply never talked about money at all.
My parents might not have taught me anything, but I learned things from them all the same:

I learned that when you moved into a new, larger, nicer [...]

Sometimes the best personal finance books aren’t about personal finance.
In June 2006, for example, I shared a brief review of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. Ostensibly this book is about creativity and overcoming procrastination, but I found its lessons valuable for pursuing my financial goals. Last year I read Mastery by George Leonard. On the surface, this book has nothing to do with money, yet it’s one of the best books about money I’ve ever read.
John C. Maxwell’s Failing Forward is another of this ilk. It’s not meant to be a personal finance book, yet I’m willing to bet that more of you can improve your financial lives by reading it than by reading The Automatic Millionaire or Personal Finance for Dummies (though these are both fine books). Why? Because books like Failing Forward apply to your entire life rather than just one part of it.
Failing forward
I clearly remember a period during the [...]