YOUR BEST BROKE STORY CONTEST

Laid Off? Outplaced? Downsized? Or Tryin' To Hold On?

It's rough out here. Hey, Ford, GM and Citibank are almost broke, and that noise you hear is the money in your wallet screaming. We have definitely been there. Sometimes it felt like we were drowning, and there are still days of treading water, but we helped each other through, learned some lessons and can even laugh about it—some days. It's what inspired our latest book and in What Doesn't Kill You, Thomasina "Tee" Hodges finds out that being broke ain’t for sissies.

Writing about the money madness helped us make space for positive change, so here’s your chance. If you've ever been BROKE, tell us your story—in 500 words or less. It can be funny (because sometimes laughing is what keeps us going) or serious, but tell us how you survived your personal economic crisis WITHOUT a government bailout.

We'll be giving two lucky on-line winners autographed copies off What Doesn't Kill You, Gotta Keep on Tryin', Better Than I Know Myself, Far From the Tree & Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made as well as an autographed copy of finance expert Deborah Owens’ book, a package of Sweet Unity Coffee (see http://deberryandgrant.com/ for more info on our new coffee venture)--all packed inside a TiffiBag (see http://deberryandgrant.com/shopping if you haven't read Gotta and don' t know what a TiffiBag is!)

RULES:

1) Entry must be 500 words or less.

2) Post your story in the comments section of our blog at http://twomindsfull.blogspot.com/ or http://blog.myspace.com/twomindsfull. Entries will only be accepted in one place, not both. Or email your story in the body of the email, NO ATTACHMENTS, to mybrokestory@gmail.com

3) Contest Deadline is midnight, January 20, 2009. Finalists will be judged by Deborah Owens, financial guru, radio talk show host and author Confident Investing, Nickel and Dime Your Way to Wealth, and coming in 2010, PURSE OF YOUR OWN: An Easy Guide to Personal Finance. Check out: http://www.deborahowens.com/. Winners will be announced here on January 27, 2009

4) Our friends and relatives are excluded. You know who you are and so do we--AND we already know your broke stories.

5) We guess all employees of Simon & Schuster, Victoria Sanders & Associates, and Owens Media Group LLC, should also be ineligible--not because you're all so highly paid you couldn't possibly have a broke story--but because contest rules are like that.

If you've never been broke--nevermind!