Spending Patterns

This last week I spent some time looking at personal financial software again. It really came down to two choices - Quicken or Mint.com As I was searching for reviews of the two, I came across a really interesting article.

First - what I saw as the difference between Quicken and mint.com was that mint was a "cloud" product and Quicken was a desktop product. Then I discovered that Quicken now has a cloud product out there too!

This is where it got interesting. I'm a big fan of data mining - I like to be able to look at large volumes of data and find the nuggets in it. Mint.com provides a really unique opportunity for that - because all of this data is uploaded to one database, it becomes possible to mine it for interesting trends.

No, you and I can't do that - at least not yet. But in one of the reviews I read comparing Quicken to mint.com they let it slip that mint.com had noticed a significant change in people's spending habits - a drop of $300 US/month per user!

This is where cloud computing gets really interesting - if everybody is uploading all their data - whether it be pictures or finances - it makes it relatively easy to track trends. Nobody is interested in what a specific individual does (okay, MOST people aren't) - but to know what a large population of people is doing? This is WAY better than all the crazy membership cardst to track "discounts" - but that are really just set up to track your spending patterns.

So, what made this so interesting to me was this: the data at mint.com shows a drop of $300/month is spending. Are people, in general, becoming less of the consumer animal we've grown accustomed to? Or does this represent a small part of the population. It could be argued that those who are willing to take the time to manage their finances by computer are more likely to be fiscally responsible. How broad-based is this trend?

Personally, I'm torn on whether it's a good thing or not. Long-term, better fiscal responsibility is better for individuals and the country. Short-term, if you spend all your money on consumer stuff it's gonna drive up the profits of companies I might own...

Let's get responsible people!