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.
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