• Mint - This online money management tool allows you to set up all of your accounts online.  Credit cards, checking/savings accounts, car loans, investments – if you can name it, they’ve got it.  As long as you have online accounts setup with all of your financial institutions, Mint can import the information and keep it up to date at all times.  Your information is safe, and there’s even an iPhone app so you can check it anytime, anywhere.  See your net worth, get notifications when bills are due, and categorize transactions.  You can set up budget categories for transactions so you can see if you are on budget throughout the month.  Mint does have competitors – here’s a table that compares Mint with Geezeo and Wesabe.
• Finfo – “We bring you up-to-date information about college tuition, the cost of living, and more.”  Ironically, part of being in a tough economy is finding a new job.  Finfo helps you analyze how to salary you are being offered compares with the cost of living in that area.  In also helps you plan when sending someone to college, and offers budgeting tools as well.
• MyCheckFree – If you’re bank doesn’t offer online billpay, MyCheckFree is a site that allows you to pay your bills for free.  Though there are a limited number of payees, it can take some of the stress off of organizing and sending your bills in on time.
• Online Billpay – This is available through most online banking sites, and is often free.  If your bank doesn’t offer online banking, I would highly recommend finding one that does.  With online billpay, you can setup payments in advance to be withdrawn from your account when bills are due.  Many banks, such as mine, will even send paper checks to businesses that don’t accept online payments.  I don’t pay a dime for postage, and it saves me that hassle of writing a check and sending it in on time.  I know when my money is coming out of my account and what my balance will be when it all goes through.  To top it off, I can setup recurring payments for rent and any other bills that don’t fluctuate in price.  If your bank does charge for this service, weigh the benefits and decide if it is worth it.

It’s inevitable that there’s a ‘must-have’ tools that I didn’t cover.  I’d love to hear how you’re managing your money.

The first one can only be accomplished if you have a self-hosted WordPress blog. When WordPress is installed on your own web host, you can add plugins that may not be available WordPress.com or other blogging platforms. EasySMS is a plugin-based-widget for self-hosted Wordpress blogs that you can add to your sidebar. It’s a small form on which the user must give their full name, phone number, and select their carrier. They must also agree to be responsible for any charges associated with subscribing to your SMS service (you can customize the message). After filling out the form successfully, a confirmation code is sent to the phone, which the user must then return to the site and enter in the form.

This method is great because you can split your subscribers into groups, sending custom messages to each one. To state the obvious, you could setup groups for Jr. High, Sr. High, and Parents. Another plus to this method is that you manage it from the admin area of your blog. So while you’re posting youth group news, you can immediately send out a message to the group telling them to visit the site, or give them the headlines you just posted. The downside of this method is that it requires your subscribers to visit the site in order to receive messages from you. This can be a good or a bad thing, depending on how engaged your students are with your website.

Last week I had a speaking engagement in New Orleans where I presented, “Ten Things To Do, Not To Do, and To Be Aware of With Technology”. I love getting the opportunity to speak because I am able to share what little knowledge I have acquired over the years, as well as get feedback from others. During the presentation, someone spoke up about their method for texting a group, which I found to be a pretty smart idea.

Every mobile carrier assigns a suffix to their phone numbers that works like an email address (For instance, 615-555-5555@txt.att.net). When using this address, the email you send will be sent as an SMS message to a mobile device.  You can setup groups of contacts using your email service or desktop email client. Then you can send messages directly to targeted groups via their mobile devices without the subscriber having to visit your site (as long as you have received their permission at some point).

View a list of carrier suffixes here. The original file was found here.

Hope this helps!