So far this year I've spent almost $1,000 on submission fees, contests, and workshops for my poems and short stories. It's the cover charge to the slush pile. It's paying my writing dues.

$15 entry fee, Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers I've been publishing poetry in literary magazines for over two years, but have never published a short story in a print magazine with a circulation over 5,000. That chance—and the possibility of the $1,500 prize—made the $15 worth it.

$12 entry fee, "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Contest Possible prizes included a one-time payment of $250 and a poetry reading at New York's 92nd Street Y. I didn't [...]

I recently attended a professional conference in Louisville, Kentucky. I have not felt so uncomfortable around a group of people I theoretically have something in common with in my entire life! Well at least since I made the mistake of signing up for a free group trip to Israel back in 2009.

The big difference was, this time I realized that I wasn’t crazy to feel like everyone was judging me—they totally were. Conferences are like what Charles Darwin would invent for a high school project on survival of the ambitious, and his group members would be Becky Sharp, Attila the Hun, and a honey badger.

I decided to treat [...]

If you're a kid and a toy you bought doesn't work as promised, or it turns out the best parts were sold separately, you don't have much recourse. You might complain to your parents, but they're likely to point out again that TV is deceptive. After all, there is an entire industry devoted to parting your hard earned cash from you, yet most commentary on this is directed to your parents. What you're really looking for is someone to agree it's unfair and acknowledge you care about your money while explaining the mysteries of ads. In the '90s, Consumer Reports filled this needed role with Zillions, a magazine that [...]

Sometimes you have to start at the bottom, and for a lot of young people, the bottom means doing an internship. Interns are usually expected to produce labor fitting of a full-time paid employee for a small pittance, but usually for free, in exchange for precious experience and professional contacts. Sometimes, companies treat their interns well, and the experience can lead to a job or greater opportunity down the road. But more often than not, businesses take advantage of young people, exploiting them for free labor, all in the name of "paying your dues"—just like everyone at the top allegedly did once.

So how does a student or recent [...]

Being funny can be expensive in a place like Grand Rapids, Mich., where comedians often have to travel great distances looking for a gig.

I gave stand-up a try last spring out of a combination of general boredom and creative dissatisfaction with my job in the marketing department of a non-profit healthcare organization. A year later, I've made precisely $20 doing comedy, which I got for winning second place in an audience-judged competition at a biker bar (to be honest, I would've been happy to make it out of there without being shived). But I've also "invested" about $15,000 into my comedy "career," which is sort of insane when I [...]

Helaine Olen spent several years as a personal finance writer and editor, beginning at The Los Angeles Times in the '90s where she was the newspaper's "Money Makeover" columnist. Over time, she came to the understanding that nobody in the personal finance industry really knows anything beyond very basic and common sense suggestions (i.e. live within your means). Olen says its empowering to learn how to manage our own money, but personal finance gurus like Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and Robert Kiyosaki, and networks like CNBC can't tell you how the stock market or real estate will perform in the future, but are making a killing doling out conflicted advice [...]

According to my friends:

"For awhile, I had a job where I did a lot of crying at work. I was frustrated with my job and my boss, and I spent a lot of time locked in a bathroom stall, trying not to wail. I got paid to cry."

"Some gchatting, some email, but always accompanied by guilt. Sweaty, paranoid guilt."

"Bathroom naps. It is what it sounds like: Sitting on the toilet, (usually) not actually going to the bathroom, leaning forward with your with your head either in your hands, (watch out for the red forehead) or leaning against something, maybe the toilet paper rack. Rest for ten and [...]

Every year on Good Friday Catholics around the world celebrate the Stations of the Cross, a ritual which traces back to early pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Usually the "stations" are a series of small plaques, reliefs, or statues inside a church, but in many parts of Europe networks of small shrines were set up around various cities to allow the faithful to make their own mini-pilgrimages without the expense or danger of traveling to the Holy Land.

My local Catholic church in Washington, D.C., however, has taken a more radical approach, using the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion as an allegory for the changes gentrification has wrought on our neighborhood. [...]

Mike: After reading some of the conversations we've had with high-earners, you got in touch with us and said you wanted to talk about what it's like to not earn a lot of money. Can you introduce yourself?

Broke Person: So, I'm 25, I live in the Midwest, I work and live at a camp/environmental learning center, and I earn just shy of $15,000 a year. It's pretty seasonal work, so I earn most of that between late April and early November. The winter can be pretty lean in terms of what we do for work, so most of us supplement it with a second job. Last year, I [...]

I'm under water. My money escapes me. I'm going through a period of austerity. I'm facing temporary cash flow issues. I reject the arbitrary assigning of value to paper and metal objects. I left my wallet at home. Money is its own master.

Whether you're headed to a wedding (even your own) or just a barbecue, you may interact with someone who is unemployed. Do you offer a hug? Should you feign laryngitis and walk away? It can be stressful for the employed, or otherwise economically stable, to know how to respond.

Trust me. Since I was laid off, family, former colleagues, and especially, strangers, (albeit indirectly and always unsolicited) let me know how challenging my joblessness is for them. These rules of thumb will help you handle the unbearable lightness of being around the non-working class.

JUDGE: If someone admits to being laid off, fired, let go, or otherwise not working, let [...]

In the summer of 2011, I was offered a job in Doha, Qatar, teaching English at Doha's first and only American-style community college. I took it without hesitation because I was broke. I took it because I was straight up terrified of my mother's spare futon. I took it because I was suffering from M.F.A. Syndrome.

I’d spent three years of my life getting an M.F.A. I'd sacrificed both money and the potential to make money in the name of scholarship and art. (After all, how do you get people to do something without fair remuneration? You feed them ideals. Educated people are as vulnerable to this as [...]

There is in all of us I think a tension between sharing something wonderful and keeping it secret inside you so you can enjoy it on your own. I once hid from friends and family the fact that I was watching and enjoying Friday Night Lights, because I wanted it to be mine alone. I've refused to explain where exactly a restaurant is to avoid diluting the pleasure it gives me with someone else's. But eventually, my desire to keep all joys to myself is overpowered by wanting everyone else to be happy, and I reveal the existence of the pizza place that doesn't actually have a street address, just [...]

In the heat of the Texas summer, I found myself ringing up groceries and sacking groceries and sometimes, when I absolutely couldn't avoid it, pushing grocery carts in from the grocery store's parking lot. That was my career. I had dropped out of school the year before to spend more time with my writing even though the only publications I held to my name were three reviews on a small (but well-respected!) video game site and first place in my community college's short fiction contest. One day while bagging groceries, I realized that my very gay, very avant-garde debut novel would take years to finish, would make me no money when [...]

When the manager at the wine bar said he'd hire me, I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Really?"

I'd applied for so many jobs, I'd almost forgotten that the point was to actually get one. I moved to San Diego in the fall of 2008, fresh off an all-consuming break-up with my college boyfriend—I'd spent the last few months watching romantic comedies rather than the news, so the recession came as an unpleasant surprise when I began to look for jobs. San Diego's economy depends on tourism, and as such it was a very dumb place to move just as "staycation" became a thing.

"Really," he replied [...]

SHARK ATTACK! Welcome to Shark Tank, literally the best show on television.

I started watching Shark Tank apropos of nothing a few months ago and have since then become hooked to the point of backtracking through the entire series on Amazon Instant Watch. It's a magnetic proposition, to watch a person in a candy-striper costume walk up to a panel of millionaires and ask for $300,000 in exchange for 20% of a company devoted to making doggie ice cream. It's even more appealing to believe that American entrepreneurial success can be stripped down to a 15-minute distillation of a person's pitch, personality, and business plan.

The five people you [...]

Candy bar at the bodega near my house in Brooklyn: $1. Candy bar at the bodega near my office in Midtown Manhattan: $1.25.

1. Midtown shopkeepers pay a shipping service to import candy from Brooklyn at 25 cents an item and graciously charge their patrons at cost.

2. Every 50,000th candy bar sold in Midtown contains a check for $12,500

3. Manhattan is an insidious place that feeds off the easily-gotten money of fools and craven-hearted.

"I should wake up excited to go to work," we tell ourselves. For many people, this feeling is so essential to our definition of what it means to have a great job that we don’t even question it. But is how much you look forward to going to work in the morning a barometer for how good your job is? This topic came up at a recent career group session and led to a really interesting discussion.

The question tends to elicit strong reactions from people. "Of course you should be happy to go to work!" people respond incredulously. That’s how I used to feel, too, but now I’m [...]

About a year ago, I applied for a senior position at work. Along with three others, I was given a position. The kicker is: Someone was already in the job (on contract) and my appointment meant they had to be demoted. The other three were already contracted in the senior job and simply got permanent positions. I've been junior to the guy who got demoted since I started working there, and I do think there was a non-merit/political rationale behind choosing me over him (he's not so popular with upper management). I just applied because it was a great job. He left to work a temporary role elsewhere and has [...]