Woo hoo, Frank!

I love my debit card because it lets me pay "cash" without actually having any cash. Of course, I also love my current job for paying me enough that I can generally buy things I want with money I already have.

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Since I am newly working for The Man, what is a low/normal/high raise these days?

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Yay raise!

I need to come up with an idea for an information service for a professional or cultural group for a group assignment at school.

A way for professionals to barter skills, like trading web design for accounting?

A way for people who work at home to get together for brainstorming, meet for lunch or share information? (www.workatjelly.com is trying this, but it's a little too casual for me.)

A service that helps small businesses find green products, recycle and reduce their energy use? Big businesses have a clear economic gain doing a lot of these things, but small business doesn't have the time or resources.

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My pay days are the 15th and last day of the month

Mine too, and I hate it. I loved getting paid every other week, just for those beautiful three-paycheck months. Of course, if we weren't all living paycheck-to-paycheck, it wouldn't make such a difference. Argh. Until embarrassingly recently, it never even occurred to me that someone wouldn't live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Congrats, Frank! Great news!

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Megan, it depends on who you're working for. If you've got Frank's boss, you got great raises (congrats, Frank!!). If you've got mine, and you give a decent if not glowing review, you give that employee a 1.5% raise.

Barely a third the inflation rate.

Sucks.

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Wowzers. [link]

Miss Brennan had an urgent transplant after a virus caused her liver to fail, potentially fatally, when she was nine years old. But she became very ill nine months later, suffering pneumolysis - a breakdown of the red blood cells.

When tests came back, her doctors were astonished to find the girl's blood group had changed from O-negative, the same as her parents, to the donor's blood type of O-positive. Further tests revealed stem cells from the donor liver had penetrated Miss Brennan's bone marrow - a phenomenon her doctors have described as a natural bone marrow transplant.

They say they were even more surprised when they found the girl's immune system had been almost totally replaced.

I imagine so!

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Since I am newly working for The Man, what is a low/normal/high raise these days?

I'd say Kathy's probably closer to how a lot of places are going with raises these days. I've been very fortunate the last couple of years, at least in regards to raises, but some have been job title upgrades, some have been market adjustments, etc. I'd say what I thought I was getting is probably closer to how our merit increases usually go here.

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I love my debit card because it lets me pay "cash" without actually having any cash.

Yeah, when I say "cash" most of the time I mean "debit card instead of credit card."

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Yeah, when I say "cash" most of the time I mean "debit card instead of credit card."

I try to limit my debit card to things I can only pay for online (like Sous Kitchen). It's just so much easier to keep my spending down when I use actual cash. I have $20 left in my wallet, so that's how much I have to spend for the rest of the month.

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I do a lot of xmas shopping on line - plus December is the first tax bill. December is $$ month, but over the years I've gotten us to the point where we catch up by February.

I get paid biweekly, Matt the 15 and last day. The 1st -15th can be tight - due to the mortgage payment - but it is more like - eat at home not out - or wait a week to buy an expensive pair of shoes.

Good on you for finding real motivation, Susan. I think that is the key. We put things like tires on the CC, but things like a sofa, the bandsaw , etc. are cash. Because they can wait until we have cash. That helps with the savings

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