Blog
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Sleeping With Money: Getting Your Money’s Worth With Online Dating
So you’ve decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a premium online dating service. The main value of a paid dating site is that you’re meeting people who are financially motivated (by membership costs) to find a serious relationship, or at least date. There are also other features like compatibility matching or safety features.…
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Tipping Etiquette: Reader Survey Says’¦ 15% is Standard
We had about ninety responses to the QC Tipping Survey in the last week. Of those who identified themselves by gender and orientation, we had 39% lesbian, 33% gay men, 21% straight women and two guys who were comfortable with their masculinity. The full results are visible here and my deeper analysis follows below. Tipping…
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WWYD: Hire a Friend or More Qualified Candidate?
The hiring process can be a unique one. Whether the organization is large or small or simply a solopreneur looking for subcontractors, the question of who you hire for the job is not always black and white. In fact it is often multiple shades of gray. While I certainly would not condone hiring someone simply…
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Citibank Freezes Home Equity Lines of Credit
‘œRemember that credit is money.’ ‘“ Benjamin Franklin As many readers know, I’m a proponent of keeping an untapped home equity line of credit (HELOC) at my disposal for major emergencies. This isn’t my emergency fund. It’s what I call my catastrophe fund. I’ve always believed that keeping a HELOC readily available is the best…
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What Comes First: Your Work or Values?
This recent news story was clearly designed to appeal to sentimentality. Nonetheless, you’ll likely forgive the journalist’s approach. The protagonist: Debbie Shank, a brain-injured woman whose 18-year-old son was killed while on duty in Iraq. She asks about his whereabouts only to be reminded that he’s dead. She cries each time like it’s the first…
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How To Be Alone
After college graduation, I gave myself a break from intense reading–for a couple of months, I read nothing but light novels and graphic fiction. I love fiction and comics all the time, and don’t always see them as fluffy–but after writing my thesis and loading up on literary theory and cultural studies courses at the…
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To Gift or Not to Gift? The Ethics of Giving and Getting for Kids
Are you an anti-materialistic parent like me?Do you eschew gifts’”giving and /or getting them—for kids’ birthday parties? Well, you’re part of a trend. Lots of parents are trying to deescalate the birthday wars, and are opting out altogether from the tradition of giving and getting gifts at kids’ birthdays. I respect that. I can understand…
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Five Expensive Choices I Don’t Regret
I realized after my last post that I was feeling a little down on myself. I’ve made some less-than-perfect decisions in the past, but so have we all. So I thought I’d put together a list of choices I’ve made since starting college that have turned out to be great, if not always the best…
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Seven Financial Things I’d Do If I Were Starting Over
The personal finance blogosphere is teeming lately with book reviews and tips for folks who are just starting out in the world of personal finance. Trent over at The Simple Dollar recommends what he calls The 50% Solution for people just entering the workforce ‘” put 50% of each paycheck into savings, and live off…
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Shop Locally: Independent Businesses vs. Big-Box Stores
Rhea Becker is a Boston-based journalist and blogs at The Boomer Chronicles, a fantastic site for baby boomers. She employs humor (e.g. ‘œDoes this blog make me look fat?’) and other commentary about life on the verge of fifty (check out her five-part series on Aging and Our Senses). She’s written a guest post for…
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