I understand that affording adequate health care on a budget is a gut twister for the unemployed, self-employed, or those with serious chronic illnesses. They say that catastrophic medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcies in the United States. As a the former wife of a very smart internist, I learned more than most laymen about every day health and how to fix things at home instead of going to the ER or minor emergency center. I have also listened to people who had no clue what they were talking about give, even sell, "authoritative" advice and services that I believe could have been life threatening. I want to post this section as a new page, but until I figure out how to do that, we will begin discussing health right now. Under the links section, you will find reference to sites that are trustworthy and authoritative.
Here is the BIG disclaimer: Always check with your doctor before trying anything you read on this or another site. You risk your life if you proceed without checking things out first with your doctor, who is afraid of being sued for malpractice and therefore; will not lie to you or mistreat you to sell a product. This is especially important if you have a major condition like asthma, diabetes, heart disease or cancer.
That being said, I know many of you don't or won't go to see your doctor, so we do the best we can in the meanwhile. There are many "natural" products that you can buy without a prescription. We like the personal control and ease of access we get when we go straight to a remedy without having to check in at the window and sit in a crowded waiting room next to sick strangers who have handled every arm rest and magazine available in the room every day after blowing their nose or coughing into their hands. YUCKY! (I have always wondered why more doctors and nurses don't get sick from their patients. I believe that one reason is they wash their hands alot. I suspect that they have slowly built immunity up in their white cells to all sorts of bugs from their long time exposure to low levels of disease causing microbes. Hence, they are protected from much of what ever is going around.)
Back to natural products: the big pharmaceutical companies want you to buy their product. They spend millions researching and marketing the latest gee-whiz drug to your doctor. They fill her cabinents with free samples so doc can make you happy by sending you home with a party favor. Sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it isn't so great. We are getting drug-resistant bacteria because so many of you insisted on antibiotics for viral colds. Colds are caused by viruses, which is not something you can kill with antibiotics. So stop it. If you have a fever and sore throat, stay home from work and rest, take an acetametaphin or naproxin and drink some nice hot herbal tea or cocoa. Half a day or so, you will feel much better.
Here are some things that people go to the doctor or ER for unecessarily:
Mild sore throat
Running nose
Chest pain (I'll tell you what to try before you call the ambulance)
Low-grade fever
Acne
Strained muscles
Tension and migraine headaches
Menstrual cramping
Allergic rhinitis (hay fever)
Heart burn
Anxiety
I will take each one of these and show you how to do it at home, often with the same essential elements that your doctor would use at the ER for a lot less trouble.
About the herbal and natural products and mega vitamins: you are spending too much here as well. You will have very expensive urine. Some of these cures are nothing more than old wives tales. Some have very real benefit and some have so little benefit for the cost that you are wasting your money. Doctors do not recommend natural remedies as often as they could, not because they don't want to, but because many of these things have no reputable, scientific research that proves clinical benefits. And if they do prescribe it and it doesn't cure you, you will sue them. So they will write you prescriptions and order expensive tests just to prove a simple diagnosis. This is the nonsense that drove up the price of health care to the crisis point that it struggles with today. That is not to say the easy remedies don't work; rather, it explains why your liscenced physicians err in the opposite direction.
Also, remember that many over-the -counter products used to be by prescription only. Now they are out in a generic form. Many are manufactured by the original maker. So there you go. You can get products that used to be only by prescription. They are that strong and that safe. I was surprised at how many of these are even at the dollar stores!
Here are some easy to obtain items that have been clinically demonstrated to help:
Oatmeal
Ground Flax seed
Cranberries
Prevacid
Zantac
Tylenol
Advil
Aleve
Glucosamine
Willow bark
Warm salt water
Triple anti-biotic ointment or cream
Cortisone ointment or cream
Monistat
Benadryl
Claritin
Zyrtec
Dramamine
Ducolax
Benzo-peroxide
Salicilic acid
Ice pack
Hot compress
Witch Hazel
Diphenhydramine
Ephedrin
Aspirin
Peptobismal
Kaopectate
With these items you can take care of headache of all sorts, cuts and scrapes, skin infections, acne, constipation, high cholesteral, hemorroids, knee pain, shoulder pain, nasea, allergic reactions, insomnia, coughing and congestion. You can check your own blood pressure, pulse rate and oxygen level at home with devices you can buy at the drug store. More detail on how to use these things later.
Finally, I would like to share with you how to quickly tell the difference between a heart attack and terrible heart-burn. This may keep you out of the ER with what doctors call turkey chest pain. You don't want to be a GOMER (get out of my emergency room). Yes, they do talk like that about us.
Drink a few gulps of liquid Kaopectate. If you feel immediate relief, it is not likely your heart, but the burning of your esophagus from acid reflux. If you have other "heart attack" type symptoms, such as heaviness and tightening of the chest, pain on the side of your face and arm, shortness of breath, heavy sweating, loss of consciousness and nausea you need to dial 911 and take some baby aspirin while you wait for the ambulance. Remember women and the elderly may not have the classic symptoms. Trust your instincts if it feels really different and go ahead to the hospital. But the Do not drive yourself to the hospital, please.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
I Mean a Whole Lot Less
Every day, I'll bet that you are noticing things that you would like to have, or like to do, that would stretch your budget. You are thinking "how can I cut down even more, when I'm not making it right now?" First of all, get over the idea that you are going to be deprived and suffer. That is the whole notion of this blog, LIVING WELL for less.
The big areas of expense for all of us are our homes, utilities, food, clothing, insurance/health care, entertainment and transportation. Now, you can bet that doctors' wives need all of these things and they can afford to get them by throwing alot of money at it. It is a shame that they throw their money at it, because they could really do it just as well for less. Part of the reason that they don't do it another way is because they don't know how to do it. Another reason, which unfortunately affects many of us, plain old laziness. These rich wives aren't motivated to hustle and figure this out because it takes a little homework. They are waiting on the gravy train. However, I would advise one to prepare and to practice living frugally. Sometimes the gravy train runs off the track and you still have a destination you need to get to.
I would like to tell you a true story. I was working alone on a contract job in Europe and needed to get to a train station in a small town in the Netherlands where the person I was replacing was waiting to pick me up. This was my first time in Europe. I had no phone number and no name to contact, just my ticket and the address of my destination for work. I had been flying all day. It was winter and very cold. I had flown into the enormous Frankfurt,Gemany airport and caught the correct train out of the airport/train station.
Along the way, I met another English speaking woman and so we rode together with our huge American size bags crammed into the small commuter car of this little train. There was no overhead compartment or seat large enough for our whopper bags, so they are wedged in our seats over our laps. The train was quite full of homeward bound workers. We had a stop where we needed to switch trains. The announcer on our new train was making many updates in French, German and Dutch, but nothing in English. I could make out a few German words and my companion could make out a little French. The Dutch was impossible. A gentleman sitting across from us had brought a little flask of whiskey to ease his trip and spoke a little bit of English. Between the three of us, we realized that the train to our destination had been cancelled due to ice on the tracks. We weren't going to get there today. Nor even anytime that night.
I studied the regional train map I had picked up at the station. I couldn't read much of it, but I could follow the train lines and make out where the town I needed was and every town in between. When we disembarked and studied the electronic schedule board at the station, we could see the incoming arrival times were getting later and later. Then some trains began to show up as cancelled. It was sleeting and snowing. Finally, there were only two or three trains still up on the board as running. We are in a small rural village with no hotels. We had little local currency and there are no English speaking people around. They didn't take credit cards. We have no way of contacting our business connection who was waiting at our destination. What would you do?
Quickly, we got onto the last train running that was headed in the approximate direction of our final stop. We road that train as far as it went until it could no longer proceed. By this time, it was well into the late evening, dark and sleeting, with at least half an inch of ice coating everything on top of some pretty messy snow. We made a plan. Cobbling together what few words we could muster between her French and my pitiful German, we asked for information from passerby. I stayed with the bags, my friend went to call for a taxi. When the lone taxi in town arrived, it was mobbed by other people looking to get out of being stranded just like us. A kindly gentleman nearby held back the mob as I struggled to run through the snow and ice with our bags. The cab driver had been awakened to come and pick us up and had his wife in the front seat. He shook his head at the size of our bags but managed to stuff them into the back of his little European taxi.
We had trained it to another small village 10-12 miles from our destination. The cab ride from that village out in the country wasn't too bad, if a little cramped. He dropped us off at the train station that we should have arrived at earlier. It didn't take me long to be spotted by my pick-up person, who had been waiting for several hours. The company that I was contracted with had sent another driver from Frankfurt to find me out in the country-side. They were shocked that I had made it in to the Netherlands without help. It didn't occur to them that I would figure out another way to get where I needed to be, relatively on time and unscathed, thankful that I didn't have to sleep in a train station that night.
Here are your take home lessons for today:
1. There is always another way to get where you need to go. Don't panic, just look for other options.
2. Never travel without emergency phone numbers for in-country contacts.
3. Don't travel on European trains and taxies with large, American size luggage. Even if you will be staying for months, you will aggravate everyone and your stuff won't fit. Ship a box ahead or buy what you need when you get there.
In fact, wouldn't be easier to travel throughout life with less to lug around?
As we work towards living-on-less, we will discover new and clever ways to get where we need to be with food, fun, travel, health, home and retirement. There is Joy in the Journey and good friends to keep us company. Trains don't run on a broken track, but there are lots of other ways to travel, even if I have to pick you up and drag your sorry bags all the way there over the ice.
FREE CYCLE
This is a wonderful organization that operates in many local communities. Green is their thing. Fortunately for you, it is also free and fabulous. Here's how it works: you sign up for your local freecycle community online. (Google it to get the correct link). In order to join, you have to "offer" something. FREE CYCLE is managed by a moderator who makes certain that all posts follow the simple rules and that people aren't putting anything innapropriate on the post. The idea is to keep your cast away junk out of the landfills of our country by reusing it. So, people who are remodeling give away their furniture, light fixtures and doorknobs. People who have dieted or outgrown their clothes give away their wardrobes. Same for babies who grow up a size. Boxes of books, new truck tires left in the yard by a nephew who moved away, working or not: freezers, microwaves and lawnmowers. Teachers needing craft items for class projects, litters of puppies and kittens (although animals are a stretch because they should not go to the dump, ever). You will see anything and everything eventually on freecycle. Plus, if you have need for anything specific, you can ask and see if it might be available. The rule is free, free, free. You bless your community, and watch: it will bless you right back. This is such a win, win, win that everyone in America should sign up for it immediately.
The big areas of expense for all of us are our homes, utilities, food, clothing, insurance/health care, entertainment and transportation. Now, you can bet that doctors' wives need all of these things and they can afford to get them by throwing alot of money at it. It is a shame that they throw their money at it, because they could really do it just as well for less. Part of the reason that they don't do it another way is because they don't know how to do it. Another reason, which unfortunately affects many of us, plain old laziness. These rich wives aren't motivated to hustle and figure this out because it takes a little homework. They are waiting on the gravy train. However, I would advise one to prepare and to practice living frugally. Sometimes the gravy train runs off the track and you still have a destination you need to get to.
I would like to tell you a true story. I was working alone on a contract job in Europe and needed to get to a train station in a small town in the Netherlands where the person I was replacing was waiting to pick me up. This was my first time in Europe. I had no phone number and no name to contact, just my ticket and the address of my destination for work. I had been flying all day. It was winter and very cold. I had flown into the enormous Frankfurt,Gemany airport and caught the correct train out of the airport/train station.
Along the way, I met another English speaking woman and so we rode together with our huge American size bags crammed into the small commuter car of this little train. There was no overhead compartment or seat large enough for our whopper bags, so they are wedged in our seats over our laps. The train was quite full of homeward bound workers. We had a stop where we needed to switch trains. The announcer on our new train was making many updates in French, German and Dutch, but nothing in English. I could make out a few German words and my companion could make out a little French. The Dutch was impossible. A gentleman sitting across from us had brought a little flask of whiskey to ease his trip and spoke a little bit of English. Between the three of us, we realized that the train to our destination had been cancelled due to ice on the tracks. We weren't going to get there today. Nor even anytime that night.
I studied the regional train map I had picked up at the station. I couldn't read much of it, but I could follow the train lines and make out where the town I needed was and every town in between. When we disembarked and studied the electronic schedule board at the station, we could see the incoming arrival times were getting later and later. Then some trains began to show up as cancelled. It was sleeting and snowing. Finally, there were only two or three trains still up on the board as running. We are in a small rural village with no hotels. We had little local currency and there are no English speaking people around. They didn't take credit cards. We have no way of contacting our business connection who was waiting at our destination. What would you do?
Quickly, we got onto the last train running that was headed in the approximate direction of our final stop. We road that train as far as it went until it could no longer proceed. By this time, it was well into the late evening, dark and sleeting, with at least half an inch of ice coating everything on top of some pretty messy snow. We made a plan. Cobbling together what few words we could muster between her French and my pitiful German, we asked for information from passerby. I stayed with the bags, my friend went to call for a taxi. When the lone taxi in town arrived, it was mobbed by other people looking to get out of being stranded just like us. A kindly gentleman nearby held back the mob as I struggled to run through the snow and ice with our bags. The cab driver had been awakened to come and pick us up and had his wife in the front seat. He shook his head at the size of our bags but managed to stuff them into the back of his little European taxi.
We had trained it to another small village 10-12 miles from our destination. The cab ride from that village out in the country wasn't too bad, if a little cramped. He dropped us off at the train station that we should have arrived at earlier. It didn't take me long to be spotted by my pick-up person, who had been waiting for several hours. The company that I was contracted with had sent another driver from Frankfurt to find me out in the country-side. They were shocked that I had made it in to the Netherlands without help. It didn't occur to them that I would figure out another way to get where I needed to be, relatively on time and unscathed, thankful that I didn't have to sleep in a train station that night.
Here are your take home lessons for today:
1. There is always another way to get where you need to go. Don't panic, just look for other options.
2. Never travel without emergency phone numbers for in-country contacts.
3. Don't travel on European trains and taxies with large, American size luggage. Even if you will be staying for months, you will aggravate everyone and your stuff won't fit. Ship a box ahead or buy what you need when you get there.
In fact, wouldn't be easier to travel throughout life with less to lug around?
As we work towards living-on-less, we will discover new and clever ways to get where we need to be with food, fun, travel, health, home and retirement. There is Joy in the Journey and good friends to keep us company. Trains don't run on a broken track, but there are lots of other ways to travel, even if I have to pick you up and drag your sorry bags all the way there over the ice.
FREE CYCLE
This is a wonderful organization that operates in many local communities. Green is their thing. Fortunately for you, it is also free and fabulous. Here's how it works: you sign up for your local freecycle community online. (Google it to get the correct link). In order to join, you have to "offer" something. FREE CYCLE is managed by a moderator who makes certain that all posts follow the simple rules and that people aren't putting anything innapropriate on the post. The idea is to keep your cast away junk out of the landfills of our country by reusing it. So, people who are remodeling give away their furniture, light fixtures and doorknobs. People who have dieted or outgrown their clothes give away their wardrobes. Same for babies who grow up a size. Boxes of books, new truck tires left in the yard by a nephew who moved away, working or not: freezers, microwaves and lawnmowers. Teachers needing craft items for class projects, litters of puppies and kittens (although animals are a stretch because they should not go to the dump, ever). You will see anything and everything eventually on freecycle. Plus, if you have need for anything specific, you can ask and see if it might be available. The rule is free, free, free. You bless your community, and watch: it will bless you right back. This is such a win, win, win that everyone in America should sign up for it immediately.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Eat That Frog
There's an old saying that says...
"If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"
Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things to do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't...and let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it.
An Excerpt from
Eat That Frog!
by Brian Tracy The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the "Pareto Principle" after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the "vital few", the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many", the bottom 80 percent.
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.
Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.
Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.
Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.
Blogger's comment:(And the way you approach managing your relationships as well as your finances. EAT THE FROG or it will stare at you unkindly all day long.)
"If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day!"
Brian Tracy says that your "frog" should be the most difficult item on your things to do list, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day. But, if you don't...and let him sit there on the plate and stare at you while you do a hundred unimportant things, it can drain your energy and you won't even know it.
Eat That Frog!
by Brian Tracy
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.
Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.
Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.
Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.
Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.
Blogger's comment:(And the way you approach managing your relationships as well as your finances. EAT THE FROG or it will stare at you unkindly all day long.)
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
It's all about money
Money. If you've got it, you feel a certain amount of confidence, just knowing that you can meet the demands of living in an adequate way, without worry. A friend of mine once said that you can fix anything if you throw enough money at it. There's the rub, not all of us have money to throw around solving all of our problems. It has been well publized that the very wealthy often have extremely thrifty livng and spending habits. In large part, that is how they got to be wealthy. Think of all the stories you have heard about folks who won some large prize, spent extravagently and ended up right back where they started. They were rich but they couldn't stay rich, because they didn't have the knowledge, inspiration and discipline to live well for less than they had in the bank.
Here is my first financial tip: If you win a huge lottery, keep your mouth shut and don't tell anyone. If you talk, you will be surrounded by people who want to suck your good fortune right out of your pocket. Stay away from the media. Go to several financial planners who work on a percentage only, who are certified and members of a professional organization and interview them. Ask them to outline a plan that will help you retire all of your DEBT (bad word) gain you maximum RETURN (good word) on your money. Do not go with the first one you interview. Go with the best one, the one that explains things clearly, whom you can trust.
I had a friend whose husband died tragically. Fortunately for her, he had a good life insurance policy worth
2 million of dollars. She and her daughter would never have to worry about living expenses or how to pay for college. Unfortunately, she was very lonely and eventually wanted to re-marry. Guess who she ended up with? A man who schmoozed her right out of everything that she and her daugher had been awarded. He was handsome, attentive, flattering and broke, in heavy debt and not working. After he stole her heart and her money had been depleted, he departed. When it comes to love and money, you have to be very careful , keep your mouth shut and stick to the plan!
Another friend of mine, a doctor's wife, was also tragically widowed with four children left to raise. A man in her Sunday school class called on her. He was a financial planner selling his company's investment products for a commission. He told her that her husband would have wanted him to help her because they both went to the same church. Right. She asked him what his plan was. He couldn't tell her. He just said give me your money and I'll take care of it. REALLY? God blessed this smart woman greatly with good judgement and sales resistance. She firmly declined his help when he couldn't explain his great plan to her adequately (it got a little ugly). She invested it herself after doing good research. She is living safely, putting the last of her four children through college and looking at a good retirement.
Most of us won't get huge life insurance pay outs or win a lottery. I tell God now and then that I could handle it if I won something, but He seems to think that I need to keep on working. I plan to die with my boots on anyway because I think it will keep me young. For now, let's start out with some very good links to professional financial advice. It won't cost you anything and you will learn a lot that will help you to save and grow rich. It is overwhelming to try to overhaul your entire situation if you have been drifting for awhile. Start with a small step. Check back on this blog. We'll keep you motivated and creative. There's lots and lots of things to learn and do. Hang in there.
In serving up wisdom on the mechanics of handling money, most of us want more money to handle, maybe alot of money to handle, but at least enough to get by. There are many of us who are out of work, out of savings, out of retirement funds and feeling like it just isn't going to be possible to make it on what we've got left. Here is where the creativity comes in. We will help you live well anyway. There is money everywhere you look if you know what to look for. Stay tuned for more on that as this blog grows.
Oh, by the way, do YOU think it is all about money? Some people have said that the Bible talks about money more than any other topic. I don't know how they measure that or if it is totally true. But it is true that the Bible talks a lot about much that is important to people and money is certainly important. Personally, I think I would vote for God's favor, Love, Health or Peace ahead of money. In my opinion, the way you handle money is a psychological test. It reflects what is important to you, how you relate to others and how you approach life in general. What do you think?
Here is my first financial tip: If you win a huge lottery, keep your mouth shut and don't tell anyone. If you talk, you will be surrounded by people who want to suck your good fortune right out of your pocket. Stay away from the media. Go to several financial planners who work on a percentage only, who are certified and members of a professional organization and interview them. Ask them to outline a plan that will help you retire all of your DEBT (bad word) gain you maximum RETURN (good word) on your money. Do not go with the first one you interview. Go with the best one, the one that explains things clearly, whom you can trust.
I had a friend whose husband died tragically. Fortunately for her, he had a good life insurance policy worth
2 million of dollars. She and her daughter would never have to worry about living expenses or how to pay for college. Unfortunately, she was very lonely and eventually wanted to re-marry. Guess who she ended up with? A man who schmoozed her right out of everything that she and her daugher had been awarded. He was handsome, attentive, flattering and broke, in heavy debt and not working. After he stole her heart and her money had been depleted, he departed. When it comes to love and money, you have to be very careful , keep your mouth shut and stick to the plan!
Another friend of mine, a doctor's wife, was also tragically widowed with four children left to raise. A man in her Sunday school class called on her. He was a financial planner selling his company's investment products for a commission. He told her that her husband would have wanted him to help her because they both went to the same church. Right. She asked him what his plan was. He couldn't tell her. He just said give me your money and I'll take care of it. REALLY? God blessed this smart woman greatly with good judgement and sales resistance. She firmly declined his help when he couldn't explain his great plan to her adequately (it got a little ugly). She invested it herself after doing good research. She is living safely, putting the last of her four children through college and looking at a good retirement.
Most of us won't get huge life insurance pay outs or win a lottery. I tell God now and then that I could handle it if I won something, but He seems to think that I need to keep on working. I plan to die with my boots on anyway because I think it will keep me young. For now, let's start out with some very good links to professional financial advice. It won't cost you anything and you will learn a lot that will help you to save and grow rich. It is overwhelming to try to overhaul your entire situation if you have been drifting for awhile. Start with a small step. Check back on this blog. We'll keep you motivated and creative. There's lots and lots of things to learn and do. Hang in there.
In serving up wisdom on the mechanics of handling money, most of us want more money to handle, maybe alot of money to handle, but at least enough to get by. There are many of us who are out of work, out of savings, out of retirement funds and feeling like it just isn't going to be possible to make it on what we've got left. Here is where the creativity comes in. We will help you live well anyway. There is money everywhere you look if you know what to look for. Stay tuned for more on that as this blog grows.
Oh, by the way, do YOU think it is all about money? Some people have said that the Bible talks about money more than any other topic. I don't know how they measure that or if it is totally true. But it is true that the Bible talks a lot about much that is important to people and money is certainly important. Personally, I think I would vote for God's favor, Love, Health or Peace ahead of money. In my opinion, the way you handle money is a psychological test. It reflects what is important to you, how you relate to others and how you approach life in general. What do you think?
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