Saturday, March 27, 2010

Mint: Official endorsement

It is a very strange for me to endorse a secular product or service.  However, I am so impressed by Mint.com that I feel like it could be a real blessing to your family for the income God has given you.  Incredibly, Mint.com is totally FREE and simple to use.  No strings attached, no downloads.  It is all online on their servers.  It is highly rated, perfectly safe, and very popular in the financial world.

We switched to Mint.com when Microsoft announced that they would no longer offer Microsoft Money after 2011.  We had used Money to budget our finances for a few years.

These products connect to your checking account via the Internet and allow you to set up a budget, show reports, etc.  Mint.com is only a budgeting tool and does not allow you to pay your bills.  It only connects to your bank account to download your transactions.  Anyhow, you have to pay your bills on the Bank's website, or just the old fashioned way of checks.

So.....as I was saying originally - I LOVE MINT.  It categorizes all our spending almost automatically and generates instant reports of what we are spending our money on.  You see pie charts for the whole year and even compare them to the average other families are spending in the USA or Delaware.  I spend very, very little time inputting any information.  It does it automatically from my bank.  Awesome.

You can set up a budget for every category and it will warn you when you overspent for something.  It will send you a warning email or even a text message I believe.  "Too much for restaurants!" it says.....Ha, Ha, good stuff.  "Mortgage payment due in 5 days!"  There is also humor built into the service.  "Freshen accounts?"....get it?  Fresh, Mint....oh well....leave the humor to the bears and Jack Wagner.

I see this as a great help for God's Church as well.  When we as believers are good stewards of our money, we have more decision power for offerings like Faith Promise Missions, Building, etc.  Tithes should be automatic - no decision.  But, when we've blown all our money on Starbucks....well, it doesn't go to World Missions, I'll tell you that.

Hope this helps.  It sure is helping the Witmers.  (by the way, the screenshot above is NOT my account :)

1 comment:

  1. Thanks Pastor...I was just looking at this today and starting setting up an account. Angie

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