Aaron Patzer, founder and CEO of Mint which helps consumers organise their financial habits and behaviours, has written a fascinating blog entry on Techcrunch about the impact of the global financial crisis on consumer spending habits.
Apparently, since September, Mint's user registration rate has more
than quadrupled reaching 900,000 people or
1% of US households, and Mint now tracks $50 billion in assets & liabilities.
What is particularly interesting is the charts he post, such as this one which shows that, after a bump in the May/June time frame from tax refunds and credits, we see
spending declined by $400 / month / household. Spending eroded even further (a
$200 drop) in November along with consumer confidence, bouncing back only
slightly for the holidays:
There are lots of other insights there and on the Mint website, such as a visual guide to the financial crisis.
It also helps to explain why the US economy has contracted at its fastest rate since 1982 in the last quarter.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
