Sound Mind Investing (SMI) is an excellent Christian financial resource I want to tell you about in today’s post. The company, most well known for producing America’s Premier Christian Financial Newsletter,has a mission to help people strengthen their future financial security and position them to give more to accelerate the cause of Christ.
I first learned about Sound Mind Investing (SMI) while browsing around on www.crown.org (Crown Financial Ministries) looking for financial tools and resources. According to Crown’s website, Larry Burkett recommends SMI as well as Ron Blue who is a well-known Christian author on Biblical finance. In fact, the idea for the Sound Mind Investing Newsletter surfaced in a lunch discussion between Crown co-founder Larry Burkett and SMI’s founder Austin Pryor.
SMI provides expertise in the area of investing. If you ever thought you wanted to become a do-it-yourself investor, but didn’t think you had the knowledge or time to do so, SMI will get you there. But they will get you there based on Biblical principles which make them an all around awesome resource to add to your financial toolkit.
Personally, I feel SMI fills another important area of personal finance that isn’t often discussed in much depth with Crown (by design). Crown’s approach, at least with Money Map Coaching, is to advise each budget have a place for investing and definitely the Biblical reasons to do so. But, Crown doesn’t go beyond those high level concepts because it’s really the investing experts you want to provide you with guidance and information about different ways to invest.
As I mentioned, SMI is well known for their newsletter. They offer 3 first-class tools amongst a website full of helpful resources that personally keeps me coming back for more and more each day.
Monthly Printed Newsletter
The Sound Mind Investing monthly printed newsletter is SMI’s premier product. The great thing about the newsletter is it guides you through launching your own personal financial plan and coaches you through the process of being a do-it-yourself investor. The newsletter is based on financial priorities from the Bible.
The newsletter also provides details and guidance around the SMI investing strategy. SMI recommends which funds to buy and how much to invest in each risk category. There are two primary strategies you can choose from: the index fund strategy which SMI states will take about an hour of your time each year. Or, you can choose an upgrading strategy that will try to beat the market which takes approximately 30 minutes per month. Not bad from a time commitment standpoint and it’s also half the cost of the average financial newsletter! Get the Printed Newsletter!
Web membership
The web membership provides each of the printed issues in electronic form. In addition to all the features of the printed newsletter, SMI offers a members weblog that provides daily commentary. The blog provides frequent updates to discuss changes in the market and provides you the opportunity to become part of the SMI community by expressing your own thoughts and ideas. There is also a forum with over 10,000 members which allows you to get your more specific questions answered. Get the Web Membership!
The Sound Mind Investing Handbook
The Sound Mind Investing handbook offers Biblically based personal finance instruction on general money management and particularly investing. As the title states, it’s a handbook. You can pull it off your shelf to read more about particular investing topics. For example, I recently wanted to learn more about the types of sales loads you need to know about when considering the purchase of mutual funds from a financial advisor. The hand book served as a great reference providing thorough and easy to understand explanations.
Final Thoughts
The Crown Money Map leads us to a final destination of true financial freedom. True financial freedom is getting to a point on your financial journey where you can freely give more of your time and resources to help others and carry out God’s plan for your life. I’m trying to help people achieve this goal through my Money Map Coaching ministry and my work here at One Money Design. Sound Mind Investing has the same desire for people which is fundamentally why I recommend their organization. As stated on their website they want you to have more, so that you can give more.
Coming in July over at Sound Mind Investing— learn how you can win a free one-year web membership as they celebrate 20 years of SMI! If you’re into social media you can join SMI’s fan page on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.
What has been your experience with Sound Mind Investing? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
About Jason Price