The Economy According To Mint(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
The Economy According To Mint
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/30/the-economy-according-to-mint/
14 comments
The data is likely limited in scope by more than just income. For instance, its a web-based startup. This means that users of it are more likely to be tech savvy. It also means that the users are younger, which gives the baby boomers a weaker representation.
Mint is also a money management site, so by it's very nature it's users are interested in properly managing their money. People who care about proper money management are probably doing a better job of making/saving/investing it.
My life experience is limited (I'm only 24) but from it I can say with confidence that the majority of people in my community, family, school, etc are not tech savvy, don't worry about managing money, and frankly most still believe that if you can't buy the software at bestbuy or walmart it's not made by a reputable company.
Mint is also a money management site, so by it's very nature it's users are interested in properly managing their money. People who care about proper money management are probably doing a better job of making/saving/investing it.
My life experience is limited (I'm only 24) but from it I can say with confidence that the majority of people in my community, family, school, etc are not tech savvy, don't worry about managing money, and frankly most still believe that if you can't buy the software at bestbuy or walmart it's not made by a reputable company.
Yes, this struck me as a classic example of how you can't just say "Look, I have a huge sample, so it's statistically valid!" (1% is a huge sample by statistical standards at this scale... or it would be if it were properly random.) The bias in the data is strong and pervasive.
Having such a huge sample means that the data does at least mean something. It does indeed tell us something about the habits of those likely to sign up for that service, after all. It's just that converting that to the universal data we're all really interested in is non-trivial, and if the bias is strong enough, basically impossible if the projection of the noise dominates the signal.
(In other news, this article worked. I'm seriously considering signing up. :) Informative marketing, the best kind.)
Having such a huge sample means that the data does at least mean something. It does indeed tell us something about the habits of those likely to sign up for that service, after all. It's just that converting that to the universal data we're all really interested in is non-trivial, and if the bias is strong enough, basically impossible if the projection of the noise dominates the signal.
(In other news, this article worked. I'm seriously considering signing up. :) Informative marketing, the best kind.)
I don't use mint (long-time Quicken user), but it wouldn't surprise me at all if many married users of mint are couples or entire families. Nor would it surprise me for the average mint user to be in their late 30s, with fairly little representation among the just entering the workforce crowd.
Yes, that might introduce biases in their data that don't reflect with high fidelity the entire breadth of consumer actions, but even slightly imperfect data that's internally consistent can be quite valuable.
Yes, that might introduce biases in their data that don't reflect with high fidelity the entire breadth of consumer actions, but even slightly imperfect data that's internally consistent can be quite valuable.
There are other Mint users, too--I run a personal Mint account, but also one for my business. The business account is definitely quite atypical when compared to a personal account.
"Overall, the mean household income in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau 2004 Economic Survey, was $60,528"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...
To be fair he might have been displaying the median income and husbands and wives might have separate mint.com accounts, although I would be surprised if the typical behavior was to divide the cars and mortgage between two accounts.
Edit: looks like sokoloff and I thought the same thing at the same time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...
To be fair he might have been displaying the median income and husbands and wives might have separate mint.com accounts, although I would be surprised if the typical behavior was to divide the cars and mortgage between two accounts.
Edit: looks like sokoloff and I thought the same thing at the same time
I wonder if they took into account normal seasonal variation in their data. From the looks of it, they didn't.
It's mighty hard to draw conclusions from one year's worth of data. We see consumer spending spiking again in December. Is it Christmas (.com), or is it a recovery?
It's mighty hard to draw conclusions from one year's worth of data. We see consumer spending spiking again in December. Is it Christmas (.com), or is it a recovery?
I completely agree. They claim this is a 'quantitative' analysis, but it's really anecdotally describing a graph. They should have removed seasonal variations, used a larger data set, and tried a couple time series models. Maybe in a couple years, when they actually have more data, it will be more meaningful.
It mentions that "the WSJ used our empirical data on bank fees to identify the worst banking offenders" but no link to an article and I'm coming up short with Google. Has anybody seen this?
~300$/mo for a financial advisor?
This is very insightful and because it's real life data (as opposed to data gathered/guessed/invented by agencies) it has authenticity. Patzer should be official advisor to the government.
By 'agencies' I assume you mean government agencies; and by "gathered/guessed/invented" I assume you mean government agencies are wildly inaccurate. Citation needed.
this is the best techcrunch article posted in ages. (we've had a negative trend, just giving credit where it is due, even if it is just a guest article.)
Anyone have numbers for revenue or projected lifetime value of a customer for Mint? It looks like they've raised over $19m in venture capital and I like what they do - I'd be curious how they're doing on money.
Based on that data an average minter makes at least $4,100 x 12 * 1.33(to account for taxes) = $65,436...and thats specific spending, who knows what % of their income gets saved or invested.
So thats the 10% or so of the population who are well off, what about all those people making less than 70-80K?