FIVE NEW YEAR’S (LEGAL) RESOLUTIONS

Here are five (5) LEGAL resolutions can help yourself and your family.

1.    Shoot a video. Make a videotape of all of your household goods, just by walking through the house and opening closets and attics. If you suffer loss due to tornado, fire, theft or earthquake (optional coverage) you can easily fill out claim forms. You will be housed in an apartment or hotel your insurance company places you in, and you can just play and pause the video. See Proverbs 27:23. Be sure to store the video with family or friends and not in your home!

2.    Buy more UM coverage. UM stands for Uninsured/Under-insured Motorists coverage. On your car, you should carry at least $100,000.00 of this coverage. It is very cheap, compared to what you may receive. It only pays you, your family or those in your car if they are injured or killed by an unknown, under-insured or uninsured motorist. See 1 Timothy 5:8. It is vital. If you do nothing else, do this.

3.    Check your credit. You can do this for free, courtesy of our government, once per year per agency at www.annualcreditreport.com.  And never co-sign!  See Proverbs 17:18. This credit check will help you spot identity theft and open cards you may have forgotten about.

4.    Check your house and land for hazards. Are there rotten trees overhanging your driveway? Do you have a good fence around your pool? Is your dog properly secured?  Are your steps solid, and your stair railings tight? Are there holes in your yard? Is there plenty of lighting available at night? If you have cattle, are your fences in good shape without overhanging limbs or unlocked gates? See Exodus 21:33. Even though you are not automatically liable for injuries on your property, an ounce of prevention stops most injuries.

5.     Do you have life insurance? Many do not. It is common for grief-stricken widows to have to work two jobs to pay the funeral off. Is that your plan for your loved ones? See Proverbs 13:22. Buy insurance, and term is usually cheapest.

These few pointers may make a real difference for you this year. And, they are not nearly as hard as a resolution to lose some weight!

Money

Money

There are a lot of myths of about money. The one most repeated is that “money is the root of all evil.” However, that is incorrect.

The verse actually says it is love of money that is the problem:

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” 1 Timothy 6:9-11 (NIV)

All evil comes from the heart, and not from inanimate objects made of paper or metal. Thus, money is neither moral nor immoral. It can be used for evil or for good. Much like guns, they do nothing on their own, but can be a tool used for an evil thing like murder or the noble defense of victims.

However, there are some facts about money that I found interesting:

-Pennies now contain 97.5 percent zinc and only 2.5 percent copper. However it costs more than penny to make them: it costs 1.8 cents to make a one-cent coin! (With thinking like that, it is no wonder our government is broke!)

-According to the U.S. national debt clock, we stand today at $14,200,727,372,615.35. The estimated population of the United States is 310,175,903, so each citizen's share of this debt is $45,782.82!

-The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $4.12 billion per day since September 28, 2007! To help visualize this, for just one day’s $4.12 billion you could buy a 2012 Ford Mustang for each of your 186,000 closest friends!

-Your odds of winning huge in the a Powerball are something like 1 in 120,526,770, which means you have a better chance of being in a car accident on the way to buy the ticket than to win!

-If you have a $3,000 credit card balance and you pay the minimums you will pay for over 10 years and almost double the repayment.

-A million is a thousand thousands. A billion is a thousand millions. A trillion is a thousand billions.

-How much does $1 million weigh? Since there are 490 notes in a pound, if you used $1 bills it would weigh a staggering 2,040.8 pounds, but if you used $100 bills it would weigh only 20.4 pounds.

-If you had 10 billion $1 notes and spent one every second of every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it would require 317 years for you to go broke.

-“Being well off” is usually defined as those that make about 20%-30% a year more than you. In other words, if you make $25,000 a year, the guy making $32,500 looks pretty well off. But the same is true for the one who makes a million and who looks at the neighbor making 1.3 million.

-Ecclesiastes 5:10 (NIV) summarizes this: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.”

*Mr. Peel, a Christian Injury Lawyer, may be available to speak to your church or community group. He may be reached through www.PeelLawFirm.com. Other articles maybe found on his blog at www.DavidBPeel.blogspot.com

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