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How do your money habits compare to the Jones's?

There's a site in beta that allows you to compare your spending (and soon, saving) habits with the proverbial Jones's. It's called Bundle.com. That's more interesting than it may sound at first, as you can slice the data any which way — by geography, age group, income, type of household...you name it. You can even see which business end up with the most of your hard earned money.

It's quite interesting to see the story Bundle tells via its data. But it also comes with a warning label. When I reviewed Mint.com (membership required) I said the following:

The second "Trends" section is what they call "SpendSpace." Here you can choose a category and a geographical location and see how your spending compares to others across the country. You can even compare your spending by merchant.

Caution #7: This is one of the most interesting, addictive, and useless features in Mint. Why should I care if I spent less on "Hair" than someone in Cleveland? Or more at Old Navy than your average Alaskan? I shouldn't. It's not going to change my spending decisions one cent. Nevertheless, like much of the Web, it's a fascinating time waster.

This type of reporting is more-or-less the point of Bundle. Yes, there are other features like "Discoveries" which is a blog aggregate, and a spending quiz that groups you into a "spendtype." But the primary reason to visit Bundle is to, as the site says, "... see how people like you spend and save money...".

I'm not sure how actionable the data is (though it probably has its uses). But it's certainly interesting, and a little bit addictive. So consider yourself warned.

Posted by Matthew at January 28, 2010 4:42 PM

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