The Economy 3

Economy: Careful, thrifty management of resources. Of course this all hinges on the fact that you HAVE resources. For a lot of people there's not much to manage.
In past posts I've shared with you some of the things I'm doing to supplement my income. The first was Blastoff, a great way to shop, save and make money. In the second post I mentioned Internet Marketing with a means to get started without spending any money. (Ten free lessons)
This time I'll give you some information on a great business I'm in: PrePaid Legal Services. I heard about PPL years and blew it off. I didn't take the time to look into the business, understand what they did, I just dismissed it. Silly me. In a nut shell it is prepaying for legal services just as you do with any other 'insurance' i.e. home owners, car, or medical. Most people will say they have never needed an attorney therefore there's no need to spend money on legal services they will never use. I thought the same thing.
The REAL reason most of us never used attorneys is: $$$$$ They are expensive! On the low end about $200 and hour to around $1000 on the high side. This is the reason most people DO NOT have current will or trust in place. As a member, your will is prepared at no additional cost and updated annually. In addition your spouse or covered family member gets a will prepared for $20.
Think about this...what if you could call an attorney during normal business hours and ask them ANY personal, professional or financial question, without receiving a bill, would it be beneficial to you and your family? As a member, you receive telephone access to a LAW FIRM for an UNLIMITED number of personal, financial, or business legal questions.
We've all been ripped off by some business, gotten a speeding ticket, had a question about.........no matter what the issue is you can call for counsel. Ever signed a contract and wish you would have had an attorney review it? You can fax ALL your personal documents and contracts to your attorney, they will review an UNLIMITED number of personal documents and contracts, up to ten pages, before you sign.
Are you concerned about Identity Theft? It's a REAL problem.

• Drivers License
• Social Security (Children are often victims and don't realize it until they are older)
• Medical
• Character/Criminal
• Financial                                                                                                                               

 Identity Theft Shield Provides up-to-date credit reporting through Experian and continuous credit monitoring.  In addition ID shield provides Identity Restoration if your identity is stolen.

As you can see there are great benefits just being a member but even greater benefits for marketing the plan. It really come down to sharing with others something that has made a difference in your own life. I have made so many calls to the law firm they recognize my voice. You WILL love PPL.
There is a lot more to this business which you can check out on my website: www.defendnow.us
Also Fox News Network is highlighting PPL tomorrow.

"Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.:  A Business for Today" will air
at 12 noon EST and 4 p.m. EST on Jan. 1, 2011.  The 30-minute
program will be shown on Fox Business News.  If you're uncertain
whether your market receives this channel, you can check by
clicking on:  http://www.foxbusiness.com/channel_finder.html

For those that do not have access to Fox Business News, the show
will also be available online at:  www.pplsuccesschannel.com. 
The streamed version will become available at 12 noon EST on
Jan. 1, 2011 and will remain available throughout the day.

Best Wishes for Great New Year
jim

The Economy 2

 This is the second installment in a series of articles sharing some of the things I'm doing to generate some additional income. There are a number of way of making money, take for example: shoes. These folks are selling shoes from their home and showing samples of the different styles on a gate in the rear of their building. ( I shot this picture in New Orleans) I thought about doing this myself but I don't have a gate to hang shoes on and if I did no one would see them but the horses that live back there. Maybe horse shoes???
The point I'm trying to make it in this uncertain economy it good to have a few streams of income. Much of what I do, I do over the Internet and most of what I'll share will be the things I do online. It was happenstance that got me involved in Internet marketing. I was listening to the radio one day, Point of View was the program, and the guest was a man who name is James Paris and he was describing how he lost everything because his business partner ripped him off. At one point he was literally broke, lost his home, cars........
The business Jim was involved in at the time was financial advice. He was consultant and thought he could use this expertise, only differently, to get on his feet again.  He started writing blog post, then books, and finally started teaching others how to do the things that were working for him. I joined his coaching program about two years ago and it's proven to be a wonderful decision. The Internet may not be of interest to you, but I'm sure that with a little imagination you can find something that you enjoy and generate

some income. To the left is a friend that paints. She started out with some small canvases for her home. After some formal instruction, she started entering fairs and winning ribbons....now, she is being commissioned to do work and has a number of clients she works with. I know people that make jewelry, photograph people and events, musicians, woodworkers, computer repair...
The reason I like Internet marketing is, you can have things in place that will have income coming in even when I'm not actively involved in the process. It's pretty cool to have a few bucks trickle in while I'm asleep.

If this is something you care to pursue, you can do so with no risk and it's free. Check out this website: www.dollarsnow.com there are ten Free lessons you can take advantage of to see if IM is something you'd like to get involved in. This is the same program I'm in and I know it works.

My next entry will be on something I believe is a must have for everyone. Don't miss it.

jim

The Hole In Our Gospel

“We are the carriers of the gospel---the good news that was meant to change the world. Belief is not enough. Worship is not enough. Personal morality is not enough. And Christian community is not enough. God always demanded more. When we committed ourselves to following Christ, we also committed to living our lives in such a way that a watching world would catch a glimpse of God’s character, his love, and mercy; through our words actions, and behavior. ‘We are Christ’s ambassadors,’ wrote the apostle Paul, ‘as though God were making his appeal through us’ (2Cor. 5:20). God has chosen us to be His representatives. He called us out, to proclaim the ‘good news’; to be the ‘good news’ and to change the world. Living out our faith privately was never meant to be an option.”

Rich Stearns,  The Hole in our Gospel

jfactor: I recently read an article by Rachel Ehrenberg abo...

jfactor: I recently read an article by Rachel Ehrenberg abo...: "I recently read an article by Rachel Ehrenberg about cockroaches and locusts that answered the age old question, 'Why did God make cockroach..."

jfactor: Is there ANYTHING we an eat? I caught the tail en...

jfactor: Is there ANYTHING we an eat? I caught the tail en...: "Is there ANYTHING we an eat? I caught the tail end of the Dr. OZ show Tuesday. It was about the things we eat that make us fat. Here are so..."

jfactor: I love to hear stories of how God is working in th...

jfactor: I love to hear stories of how God is working in th...: "I love to hear stories of how God is working in the life of others. jim Praying for the ImpossibleLysa TerKeurst ''For I know the plans..."

jfactor: The Economy

jfactor: The Economy: "As we listen and watch news programs, we often hear the words economy, jobs, national debt, health-care cost, foreclosures,..... and it's al..."

jfactor: Brown Friday Morning

jfactor: Brown Friday Morning: " What a GREAT morning. I am thoroughly enjoying my Brown Friday although I overheard a disparaging remark about how nice it would be to get ..."

Brown Friday Morning

 What a GREAT morning. I am thoroughly enjoying my Brown Friday although I overheard a disparaging remark about how nice it would be to get out of the house for a while. I think that's a code phrase for, "Lets go shopping." I have a feeling my Brown Friday is about to turn Black. Anyway, it's so nice in fact that I thought I'd take a stroll in the back yard taking note of all the leaves and hedge apples on the ground i.e. more work to do. (when does it end.....ok don't answer that I'd rather not think about that now.)
I'm enjoying the fact that mowing season IS OVER and most things are dormant with the exception of a few weeds.

 I grabbed my camera and walked around for a while, enjoying the sunshine and the brisk air as I surveyed the fall scape. I took a few shots and dashed back inside since I was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I turned on the computer to download the pictures but thought I'd check my email before I did the  download and that when I ran across this devotion which I though I would share since it had to do with leaves. Imagine that.

 November 26, 2010Just Like the LeavesMarybeth Whalen

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." Mark 8:35 (NIV)         

Devotion:As I write this, it is fall and the leaves are changing in a glorious display of color. Each landscape looks like God Himself personally painted it—red, yellow, orange and green. I marvel as I drive, soaking in the visual display that is a feast for the eyes, thanking God for His creativity and care for even the smallest of details on this earth.

When my daughter asked me one day why the leaves change color, I scanned the recesses of my brain for this most basic of elementary science facts. But there was nothing there. I patted my daughter and assured her, yet again, that we would learn this answer together. (Sometimes my children wonder if I ever went to school and—if I did—how it is I managed to retain precious little.)

We read a book together and learned why the leaves change color. The leaves are slowly dying, their hold on the tree loosening a little more every day. The more they detach, the more a substance within them called chlorophyll dissipates. Chlorophyll is green in color, which causes the whole leaf to appear green. But when the chlorophyll is gone, other colors have a chance to surface. The red, gold, and orange colors were within the leaf all along—they were just overshadowed by the presence of the chlorophyll. It took the process of dying for their glorious color to be displayed.

We are in the process of dying every day, just like those leaves. When we choose to follow Christ, He asks us to take up our cross and follow Him, engaging in a daily process of giving up our rights, our pride, and ourselves in the name of service, giving and submitting. It is the painful work of death, yet in it we find colors we didn't know were there emerging. Once our sense of self and entitlement overshadowed us, coloring us an eternal—yet common—green. In the dying process, we find that God designed us to be more brilliant and colorful as we surrender our lives to Him.

People are drawn to this colorful display. They want to know how they too can break out of their same old green-colored lives and live with this kind of brilliance. In our humanness, we want to cling to the security of the tree - the security of money, or family, or our comfort zones and routines. But God asks us to let go, to trust Him, and to die a little more every day. We must trust the dying process and encourage others to do the same, displaying our colors so that people far from Him are drawn to Him, just as He intended.

Dear Lord, I don't want to live a me-colored life. Please show me how, through dying to self, Your brilliant colors can be displayed in me. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

The Economy

As we listen and watch news programs, we often hear the words economy, jobs, national debt, health-care cost, foreclosures,..... and it's all bad news. Times are tough and most of us are feeling the pinch. I found an old article about the U.S. economy written in 1986 by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. This is an excerpt:
Full employment is the foundation of a just economy. The most urgent priority for domestic policy is the creation of new jobs with adequate pay and decent working conditions. We must make it possible as a nation for every one who is seeking a job to find employment within a reasonable amount of time. Our emphasis on this goal is based on the conviction that human work has a special dignity and is the key to achieving justice in society.

 

Full employment is certainly a worthwhile goal, but at this point in time, seems completely out of reach. Job lose seems to be an everyday occurrence and the likelihood of finding another position is rather remote.

Employment is a necessity not an option. Most of us have mortgages, car payment, other obligations and the loss of income puts us in jeopardy, which in turn causes stress, and if it lasts for a long period, panic.
One of the things I've picked up on during these turbulent times is that perhaps it is better to have multiple streams of income. That's not to say that if one is unemployed he or she shouldn't look for work, but I think it's a great time to explore other opportunities. I think at some point in time everyone has thought about starting a business, creating something, making something, doing something that you enjoy while earning some income.

I'd like to share some of the things I've been doing over the past several years that is generating income. The things I'm doing may or may not be of interest to you but help generate some ideas of your own and start you down path of, at the very least, making a few extra bucks, to owning your own business and generating enough income to sustain you.
In each post I'll share one of the things I'm doing and why.

The first is Blastoff. My site is www.blastjim.com
Blastoff is a wonderful site for shopping online and lets face it, there are many people shopping online. Registration is free, no hidden cost involved, so within a few minutes you can have your own site. Once you are up and running you have access to hundreds of stores including travel, phones (some of the best deals around), electronics....... What makes shopping through your blastoff site is that you get discounts, in addition to that you get cash back. It gets better. If you share blastoff  with someone and they get a blastoff site through your site, you get a percentage of everything they purchase. You can do this ten levels deep.
This is not a get rich scheme but a viable way of making some extra income. Think about it, you may not fill a bucket with one drip but when you have several drips coming in the bucket will fill.
The way I look at it is what have you got to loose, it's FREE. Christmas is coming and people WILL buy stuff. There are already lines forming for Black Friday.

jim

http://twitter.com/jimmz45

I love to hear stories of how God is working in the life of others.

 jim

Praying for the Impossible

Lysa TerKeurst

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

         

Devotion:

Five years ago I sat beside my youngest sister and listened as she boldly rejected my views of God.  She's always been a free spirit, much too non-conventional for traditional religion. 

"Good thing I'm not into religion," I gently replied.

She twisted her face as if half expecting a lightening bolt to strike us both.  "But you ARE religious."

I laid my head against the back of the lounge chair, closed my eyes to the sun now washing over me and simply replied, "Nope."

Deciding to let my statement just sit for a while, I decided not to clarify unless she asked.  And ask she did.

That's when I explained that I follow God not a list of rules.  I am passionate about getting into the Bible - God's teachings - and letting the Bible get into me.  I no longer evaluate life based on my feelings.  Instead, I let my feelings and experiences be evaluated in light of God's Word. 

I have watched God chase me around with rich evidence of His presence and invitations to trade apathy for active faith.  But I had to make the choice to see God.  Hear God.  Know God. And follow hard after God.

Then I took my sister's hand and told her I'd be praying for God to mess with her in ways too bold for her to deny.

Fast forward over five years later.  My sister walks into one of her professor's office and sees one of my books on her bookshelf.  I don't think she really believed anyone actually read my books.  But there it was.  And it messed with her. 

She later went home and poked around my blog a bit where she found a clip of my testimony.  Again, it messed with her.  One verse in particular messed with her so much that she let the possibility that God exists slip into her heart. 

A few days later she went and had Jeremiah 29:11 tattooed on the back of her neck.  And she started calling wanting to talk to me.  About life.  About tattoos.  And about God.

Last Thursday, I stood in the middle of the Atlanta airport praying for this precious girl who had called asking for those prayers.  She had called.  She had asked.  And that's the miracle of our Jesus.  He is the God of the impossible. 

I wonder what might happen if we dared to ask God for the impossible just a little more often.  I'm up for it?  Are you?

Dear Lord, use me today to reach the heart of one. I want to trade any apathy I may have today for active faith. Lead me, and I will follow. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Is there ANYTHING  we an eat? I caught the tail end of the Dr. OZ show Tuesday. It was about the things we eat that make us fat. Here are some a few points he made:


 

We blame weight gain on eating too many burgers and burning too little fat, but scientists are discovering that chemicals we’re exposed to everyday could be a big part of the obesity epidemic. Called obesogens, or endocrine disruptors, these natural and man-made chemicals work by altering the regulatory system that controls your weight—increasing the fat cells you have, decreasing the calories you burn, and even altering the way your body manages hunger.

It’s time to fight back. The White House's task force on childhood obesity is tackling obesogens and the Environmental Protection Agency has pumped $20 million into studying them. Here’s what you need to know to wage your own battle on the home front.

How they work
By mimicking the actions of naturally occurring hormones in our bodies or preventing the hormones we produce from acting correctly, endocrine disruptors can:

• Encourage the body to store fat and re-program cells to become fat cells.
• Prompt the liver to become insulin resistant, which makes the pancreas pump out more insulin that turns energy into fat all over the body.
• Prevent leptin (a hormone that reduces appetite) from being released from your fat cells to tell your body you are full.

Where you find them
The short answer: everywhere, particularly because high fructose corn syrup, which can be found in every kind of food, from sodas to yogurt to pretzels, is an obesogen. The ubiquitous, viscous sweet stuff makes your liver insulin resistant and tampers with leptin to increase your hunger, setting up a vicious cycle where you crave more food that is then more easily turned into fat.
Other common places to find obesogens:

• Meat and farm-raised fish: Research has found that the higher the level of pesticides in your body, the greater your waist circumference and body mass index (BMI). One of the most common places for pesticides to congregate is the fat cells of the animals we eat. A recent study found that farm-raised salmon had 90% more pesticides in it than wild salmon. Experts are also concerned that the hormones used to treat livestock may be causing obesity in people.
• In your faucets: Pesticides seep deep into the soil and find their way to the water table and into your tap water. The main obesogen in tap water is atrazine. Banned in Europe, but found around the United States, atrazine slows thyroid hormone metabolism. Another culprit found in tap water, tributylin, a fungicide painted on the bottoms of boats, stimulates fat cell production.
• Cans and water bottles: Bisphenol-A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen used to make plastics hard which has been banned from baby bottles, but is still present in many other plastics (especially sports water bottles) and the lining of most cans, has been shown to increase insulin resistance in animal studies.
• Nonstick pans and microwave popcorn: Animal studies have shown that early exposure to a chemical used to make items non-stick – Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) – leads to obesity in later life. It also is known to affect thyroid glands, which are important regulators of hormones that control weight. Found mainly in products like Teflon pans, it’s also hidden in microwave popcorn bags and pizza boxes.
• Shower curtains and air fresheners: Phtalates, chemicals found in vinyl products such as shower curtains and fragrance products such as air fresheners, may lower testosterone and metabolism levels, causing you to gain weight and lose muscle mass. They’re also found in vinyl flooring and industrial-grade plastic wrap used to shrink wrap meat in the grocery store.

How to avoid obesogens:

• Buy wild fish (such as salmon, which is packed with heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids) and meat products that are hormone- and antibiotic free.
• Install a granular activated carbon filter on your faucet to filter out chemicals such as atrazine.
• Use aluminum water bottles or those that are BPA-free.
• Steer clear of plastics with the number 3 or 7 on the bottom, which may leach BPA. Instead look for the numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, which are unlikely to contain BPA.
• Keep water bottles cool (warm temperatures increase BPA leaching) and never microwave plastic.
• Eat fewer canned foods. Opt for frozen or fresh instead. Tuna can be found in pouches that do not contain BPA.
• Get rid of your non-stick pans if possible. If you must use a Teflon pan, never use a metal implement on it that can scratch the surface and release the chemicals inside, and throw away any scratched non-stick pans.
• Buy meats straight from the butcher counter (instead of pre-packaged) and ask that they wrap them in brown paper.
• Skip the air fresheners, open the windows, and try a vase of dried lavender instead.

I recently read an article by Rachel Ehrenberg about cockroaches and locusts that answered the age old question, "Why did God make cockroaches?"


Cockroaches may be nasty bugs, but they could help fight even nastier ones. New research finds that the rudimentary brains of cockroaches and locusts teem with antimicrobial compounds that slay harmful E. coli and MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant staph bacterium. The work could lead to new compounds for fighting infectious diseases in humans.
Extracts of ground-up brain and other nerve tissue from the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, and desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, killed more than 90 percent of a type of E. coli that causes meningitis, and also killed methicillin-resistant staph, microbiologist Simon Lee reported September 7 at the Society for General Microbiology meeting at the University of Nottingham in England.
“Some of these insects live in the filthiest places ever known to man,” says Naveed Khan, coauthor of the new study. “These insects crawl on dead tissue, in sewage, in drainage areas. We thought, 'How do they cope with all the bacteria and parasites?’”
Khan and his colleagues became intrigued by insect antimicrobials when they noticed that many soldiers were returning from the Middle East with unusual infections, yet locusts living in the same areas were unperturbed. So the researchers, all from the University of Nottingham, began investigating how the insects ward off disease.
The team ground up various body parts from both cockroaches and locusts that had been reared in the lab and incubated them for two hours with different bacteria. Leaving these mixtures overnight on petri dishes revealed that the extracts from brains and from locust thorax nerve tissue killed nearly 100 percent of the bacteria.
Yet the insect brain extracts didn’t seem to bother human kidney or epithelial cells when grown with them in a lab dish.
Curiously, extracts of insect fat, muscle and blood didn’t bother the bacteria at all. Cockroaches and locusts often eat stuff loaded with microbes, says parasitologist Carl Lowenberger of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, so you would think insect guts and blood, which bathes the organs, would have similar antimicrobial activity.
Nine molecules appear to be responsible for the antimicrobial activity in locust tissue, although they have yet to be identified. The team is also still working out the details of the cockroach compounds.
The compounds may work together as a cocktail, Lowenberger says. Insects make hundreds of antimicrobial compounds, and it may be that very high concentrations of those molecules would be required for fighting an infection in humans. But the research “is pretty neat stuff,” he says. And perhaps down the road, the yet-unidentified molecules will prove useful in fighting infections in people.