(ht: Joe Thorn)

It’s no doubt that in today’s economic environment many people are struggling financially, struggling with unemployment and wishing they were debt free. I know I certainly do! Well, a few weeks ago a friend told me about a website called mint.com, an intuitive personal budgeting web application that helps take all the guesswork out of your budgeting. (We all know how hard it is to guess correctly, right?!) Well, this application shows you your spending trends and helps you in your budgeting process instead of pulling numbers out of thin air. Not only that, it’s a stark reminder every time you open the page of just how far in debt you actually are in addition to showing where you spending the majority of your money. For us, living in San Francisco, it’s also a stark reality to just how high our rent is and how much of our monthly budget goes into our living expenses!

Basically, this web application aggregates all of your online banking into one place (credit cards, bank statements, debit card usage, car loans, student loans, investments, etc) and creates pie charts, and other helpful tools to give you a stand-out visual of your actual financial situation–in real time. There’s a section for budgeting that allows you to set numbers and follow your trends of spending over the months so that you can be more accurate. And here’s a feature that I’m most excited about–whenever you go over your budget in an area, you get an email alert indicating you’re over budget and by how much! It’s a great way to stay on top of your finance!

This tool has some pretty amazing potential, and honestly, could really help a lot of people who are looking to be debt free. It’s something that many churches should seriously look into and consider adding as a resource into their Financial Courses (Good$ense, Financial Peace University, etc.) for helping people get a better handle on and understanding of their spending and their debt. And maybe even best of all… it’s free!

If the biggest barrier to generosity in our churches today is the saddle of debt that we carry around, then this simple web application can certainly go a long way to helping us rid ourselves of debt and walk forward in a new and unparalleled generosity that the world hasn’t seen from us in a long, long time!