Oh man, that is a good question and something that speaks to me on about a million levels.

Honestly, writing (and creative careers in general) are tough, not just because of finances, but because you have to sell yourself, your work, get people on board, and hope that they enjoy it.  You’re pretty much relying on what other people think.  Things don’t become big unless if people make them big, and you really have to put yourself out there, in front of people.  

An example my partner and I have talked about before is Firefly.  Firefly was one season.  Just one.  But fans today STILL talk about it and still hold onto the hope of a second season because they felt it was just that good.  If fans didn’t love it so much, it still wouldn’t be talked about, you know?  But that’s why this path is so difficult.  Fans can make or break you, in an instant really.  Which is why I get so irritated when someone is like, “Dur this isn’t a real job you know,” no, no it is, entertaining people is a job, a career, and its damn difficult.  You really are taking a risk in the hopes of someone not only liking your work enough to publish it, but that’s just the beginning, THEN you have to get your work out there and hope that its well received.

And it takes time.  It takes so much time.  It’s not something that happens overnight.  

I would say not to stress about finances, because if you stress about finances when it comes to this career then you’ll never even start, because you’re not going to make a ton of money right at the start.  So I would suggest be smart about it because you do need to take care of yourself (food, bills, rent, ect.)  I actually worked retail for a long time, the mistake I made was that I let that consume what I did and I pushed writing aside. Don’t do that.  Find time to write, in any way you want, whether its books or articles or even just blog posts.  I actually used to do anime and manga reviews, which kept me writing while I was working retail.  I also wrote fanfiction.  I wrote a LOT of fanfiction, but that still kept me writing and eventually fanfic turned into original ideas which turned into books.  

Also do NaNoWriMo.  That’s actually how all of the books I have out now came to be, I worked on them during NaNoWriMo and while I didn’t make the goal, it got all of my ideas going and my work went in the direction I wanted it to, and it was amazing.