For those of you new to Free Money Finance, I post on The Bible and Money every Sunday. Here's why.
Today, we have a guest post from ChristianPF. You can learn more about ChristianPF by subscribing to his RSS feed or by following him on G+.
Sound Mind Investing (SMI) is a Christian Investing newsletter that now has a full featured website as well. The paper subscription costs $79/year and the web only subscription goes for $8.95/month. This review is of the website and the services offered by it.
A few of the features offered on the SMI website
Articles by topic
One of the first things I noticed when using the site is the plethora of great and helpful articles divided by topic. They are written by a wide variety of authors, many of which are some of the most respected writers in the Christian Financial realms: Larry Burkett, Howard Dayton, Ron Blue, Austin Pryor and a lot more. These articles alone provide enough great reading material to fill up a couple books.
Back issues of the newsletter
As a web subscriber you have access to all of the back issues of the newsletter - back to 2006.
401k fund tracker
They have a tracking tool that allows you to plug in the funds contained within your 401k or other retirement account. Each month you can access the "Fund Performance Rankings" for each of your funds to be sure they are on par.
Recommended Funds List
They also have a list of funds that SMI recommends divided up by 5 Stock Risk categories that allow you to get some ideas for which funds to purchase.
Message Boards
The SMI message boards are also a wealth of information as well. They currently have over 10,000 members and it is a great place to get investing related questions answered.
The performance
Not having the privilege of using the SMI information for an extended period of time, I can't comment on the performance of their recommendations. However, from the stats they show, they do seem to be doing a nice job of beating the market.
In the graph below, you can see the performance of the last 10 years. The dark shaded area shows the the return received from following their Upgrading Portfolio. And the green area indicates the stock market average.
A few of the things I like about the SMI newsletter
Biblical Perspective
As a Christian I appreciate that everything they do is with the end goal of helping users become better stewards and give more. After all, what benefit is it to gain the whole world only to lose your soul? Matthew 16:26
Objectivity
They do not accept any paid advertising - which enables them to avoid the conflict of interest that advertising can play on recommendations. As they mention, "If we evaluate two competing mutual funds, do you want one of those funds to be paying our salary via advertising? Of course not. Sound Mind Investing does not accept any paid advertising."
Investment Returns
Using past performance as a guide, it does seem that if the SMI program is followed that returns will likely beat the market. Of course there are no guarantees, but the performance of the last 10 years has been a whole lot better than the S&P 500.
Note from FMF: If you'd like to learn more about the Sound Mind Investing website, you can do so here.
I have been following Austin Pryor's financial advice ever since I graduated college over 20 years ago. And I have been a newsletter subscriber for the past 10 plus years. I am really grateful for the great service they provide!
Posted by: Steve | May 24, 2009 at 07:24 PM
I have also found the articles to be great. The first issue I picked up, I found a great article explaining why some debt was...acceptable, while most was bad. It was a great explanation. Better than I had previously heard. A SMI subscription will certainly be on my Christmas list this year.
Posted by: Free Family Finance | May 28, 2009 at 03:49 PM
Austin Pryor's financial advice is the best of its kind in the industry i follow it regularly.
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jacob
Posted by: jacob | October 08, 2009 at 02:18 AM
fyi, i believe 'the stock market', as shown in the graph of smi's performance, is actually the wilshire 5000 index, not the s&p 500. i'm a subscriber and have enjoyed the subscription so far.
Posted by: t | November 13, 2009 at 01:21 PM