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	<title>Real World Finance</title>
	<link>http://realworldfinance.org</link>
	<description>A personal finance blog where small steps lead to financial liberation</description>
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		<title>Get your hand out of my pocket!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of my favorite quotes is by Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” While Burke lived nearly 300 years ago and couldn’t have imagined life in the 21st century, today his statement is as relevant as ever—on many levels. As a consumer, I’ve [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/08/24/get-your-hand-out-of-my-pocket/</link>
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		<title>Five habits you must kick to get to zero</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You see a lot of personal finance advice about doing smart things with your money—putting 10 percent of your income into savings, not carrying a credit card balance, negotiating the best deal on that new car, teaching your kids to handle money, and countless similar things. I endorse those kinds of strategies, obviously, because those [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/08/08/five-habits-you-must-kick-to-get-to-zero/</link>
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		<title>Is your printer bleeding you dry?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You’ve gotta love the way technology and the domino effect work together sometimes. Well, if you don’t love it at least you’ve got to laugh about it. I recently upgraded my Mac OS from 10.5 to 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Everything went well until it came time to use my aging (in tech years) Agfa scanner. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/07/15/is-your-printer-bleeding-you-dry/</link>
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		<title>Up to speed on health insurance?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[With all the talk about health insurance and its associated costs, I decided to become better informed. What would I need to know in order to make a smart purchase? What information is out there? The short answer: it is confusing, and the insurance companies aren’t exactly helping. First things first The first real task [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/06/05/up-to-speed-on-health-insurance/</link>
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		<title>Teach your children well</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Parents, everything your children learn about personal finance (not to mention everything else) will come from your examples. Your kids will accept paying early or paying late, having enough or not having enough, being in debt or being debt free as the way life is. If that isn’t powerful incentive to be on your best [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/05/31/teach-your-children-well/</link>
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		<title>Tempted to lease that next car?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Los Angeles Times recently ran an excellent article on the intricacies of auto leasing. I say intricacies because there are many factors to evaluate before and during the process. As author Jerry Hirsch points out, failing to check and double-check any one of them can result in a deal you&#8217;ll regret. The purpose of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/05/09/tempted-to-lease-that-next-car/</link>
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		<title>Paying bills: Waiting until the last minute?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Boy, here&#8217;s a myth that needs debunking. Some people think paying bills until just before the due date will generate more money in the form of interest. The thinking is, &#8220;Why should I give (fill in the blank) the use of my money when it can be earning interest in my bank?&#8221; Look closer That [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/05/02/paying-bills-waiting-until-the-last-minute/</link>
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		<title>I deserve it &#8211; dangerous territory</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A friend of mine is married with four children. Doug (not his real name) has a very good job and makes at least six figures. His wife Karen (again, a fictitious name) stays home to take care of the kids. Doug seems happy and is not a complainer, but one day he told me Karen [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/04/12/i-deserve-it-dangerous-territory/</link>
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		<title>Train your merchants</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It helps to think of our relationship with merchants like this: We&#8217;re the master and they&#8217;re the puppy. Now, a puppy will do whatever comes into its little head. Left untrained, the puppy will chew everything, bark all day, get up on the sofa, jump up on everybody, and do anything else he likes. Thank [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/04/05/train-your-merchants/</link>
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		<title>Do something today to combat ID theft</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s amazing to me how quickly we&#8217;ve changed our habits to leverage new technologies that make our financial lives so much easier. Yet even as we speed along in this great new direction, there are other habits we need to rethink in order to be safe on our journey. Specifically, we need to unlearn certain [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/03/30/do-something-today-to-combat-id-theft/</link>
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		<title>Inflation calc—no ostriches allowed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Along with death and taxes, you can count on inflation to lie in waiting for you. What is inflation? It&#8217;s a $40.00 fill-up. It&#8217;s the $4.00 loaf of bread, the $1,200.00 rent payment, the $150,00 electric bill, and the $12.00 movie ticket. And it never stops. The world goes through periods of high inflation and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/03/19/inflation-calc%e2%80%94no-ostriches-allowed/</link>
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		<title>Savings calculator—let&#8217;s get ahead</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The first three online calculators have helped wipe out your credit card debt, plan an early loan payoff, and buy a car within your budget Once you&#8217;ve gotten that far (and maybe you&#8217;re there already), you&#8217;ll want to sharpen your savings plan. This calculator, found at calculator.com, takes a real-world approach to savings. Like most [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/03/14/savings-calculator%e2%80%94lets-get-ahead/</link>
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		<title>Auto calc—can you afford that car?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The online calculator in this installment is very similar to the loan reduction calculator featured last time. Bankrate.com calls it an Auto Calculator and gives you more options for narrowing your price range and terms. In all good conscience, I can&#8217;t talk about this tool without first mentioning that Real World Finance is strongly opposed [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/03/12/auto-calculator%e2%80%94can-you-afford-that-car/</link>
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		<title>Need incentive for early loan payoff?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The first article in this five-part series featured the online credit card calculator, designed to give you the hard numbers on what it will take to pay off the credit card company. It was first because getting rid of credit card debt is the number one priority on the road to financial freedom. The next [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/03/07/need-incentive-for-early-loan-payoff/</link>
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		<title>Calculate this!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Regular readers of Real World Finance know I&#8217;m an advocate of seeing the big picture, financially and otherwise. If we don&#8217;t understand where we are, where we&#8217;ve been, and where we&#8217;re headed, then chances are pretty good we&#8217;ll continue repeating mistakes and getting nowhere. Sometimes it helps to think of life as a big maze [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/03/05/calculate-this/</link>
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		<title>Time to bulk up?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[After I graduated from college and started making a little money, I was struck by an idea that seemed to come out of the blue: Why not buy a year&#8217;s worth of consumables all at once? The concept made at least some sense. Running out of anything has always really bugged me. So has needing [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/02/21/time-to-bulk-up/</link>
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		<title>Cheap</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This blog article was scheduled to be about bulk buying. Tune in next time, as they say, because that show has been preempted. In its place I want to say a few words about the idea of being cheap. To me, the word cheap is repulsive. I think of cheap and trashy as the same [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/02/14/cheap/</link>
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		<title>The mother of all lists</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Back in college I came up with the idea of creating what I called my Master List, and over the years it has saved me more time and money than any other tool I can think of. Much like my To Do list, it has evolved very little since I started using it, probably because [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/02/09/the-mother-of-all-lists/</link>
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		<title>One Step Ahead</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One Step Ahead is a concept that, if allowed it to come into your life, will give you the gift of freedom. As you will come to learn, One Step Ahead can take a thousand different forms, with the end result always the same—more freedom and more choice. What you do with that is always [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/01/26/one-step-ahead/</link>
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		<title>Debit cards: 5 things you should know</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You probably know that a debit card (a.k.a. check card) looks almost exactly like a credit card. While it may display a VISA or MasterCard logo on the front, it will also say Check Card or Debit somewhere on the front. When the card is swiped at the register, funds are verified and withdrawn electronically [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://realworldfinance.org/2010/01/19/debit-cards-5-things-you-should-know/</link>
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