10 Ways to Save Money with Technology

I love to save money, as I’m sure most people do; however, one frustrating aspect of utlizing so many new church technologies is that there is cost involved most of the time, whether spent on hardware, software, or both. The tips below are general, to help you save money both at your church and in your personal life. I hope these personal and church technology tips help you out!

1) Unlock your iPhone for international travel. By buying or borrowing an unlocked iPhone, you can save hundreds on phone and data usage when you travel internationally be it for vacation or missions trips.

2) Drop or reduce cable TV and get Netflix instead for $10 per month. You can access your Netflix account and watch movies and TV shows from your Wii, iPhone, iPad, laptop computer, or any other device with internet access.

3) Online couponing through sites such as LivingSocial and Groupon are very hot and offer great deals for everything from cleaning services to travel to party rentals. So far this year, I saved 50% on a birthday party for my daughter, bought pizza at half price, and booked a date night at a winery for my husband and I for less than a meal at Chili’s.

4) Use your cell phone to shop around. When you’re at the store–whether you are purchasing something for the church or your own family–use apps such as Red Laser, which allows you to scan the barcode of a product at a store and compare it’s price to other retailers both online and offline.

5) Use streaming TV technologies to reach more people for Christ. While this might not squarely fit into the money saving category, many churches are looking to stream their content over services like Hulu and Roku, or even work with companies that have developed their own Christian media channels.

6) Use your own in-house technology team to host Bellevue Church Management System (BVCMS), a reletively new open-source church software system that is extremely low in cost. You can hire BVCMS to host and support the software to manage your church and membership, or you can host it yourself and save even more, if you have these resources on hand.

7) Have you facility assessed to see where you are using too much energy and not being efficient. Then talk to the folks at ServiceU about how to install EventU Green to manage your facility’s heating and cooling system to cut costs based on your church’s events.

Review your church’s cell phone plans. If you offer phones to your staff, make sure you’re getting the best deal by first going to your current carrier and doing an account review to see if you’re on the right plan and if all the minutes and data are being used. Sometimes, switching to another carrier can reduce your costs greatly.

9) Use social media services such as HootSuite (my personal favorite) to monitor your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media accounts. If you’re a smaller church and only have one person managing this, HootSuite is free. If you have one person managing the pastor’s accounts, and they want to have access too, you can upgrade to HootSuite Pro for $5.99 per month.

10) Hire a church technology consultant to access your church and offer additional suggestions and recommendations to not only reduce your costs, but to use the best tools to fit the goals and needs of your church.

Lauren Hunter is a freelance writer, church technology consultant (http://lhpr.net) and founder of the blog ChurchTechToday (http://ChurchTechToday.com), Technology for Today’s Church.