Mint Map: America’s Most Frugal Cities
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50 Comments so far
leave a commentPotentially those were just the least frugal cities a while ago and had a lot that needed to be cut back on.
Glad to see Minneapolis and St. Paul at least improving some. Also I’m amazed to see that Chicago spends the most on books! You would think people in Chicago have so much to do in the city they would get out more than stay in and read a book.
As usual, no sources or references are given…
The source of the data is in the introduction to the article: Our latest map is based on the aggregate data from over one million Mint.com users, a representative sampling of US consumers. And we have provided the source for all of the data we’ve published on MintLife so I’m unclear as to what you mean by “as usual”.
Excellent article Ross. An interesting breakdown would be to norm the data by cost of living to better capture the relative importance of each category.
I’m suprised that Michigan doesn’t show up despite being one of the hardest hit states by the recession.
Brooklyn is not a city.
NYC has to be the one who spends highest on clothes. It is very obvious since it is the fashion capital.
Surprised to see Portland on highest spendings in sports.
Bad data. What earthly reason would put Chicago #1 in books by at least twice the spending of the #2 city? Makes no sense. I bet its a data anamoly – maybe there is an Amazon warehouse there?
I’m happy they don’t dig in and fix this. It must be a problem with the categorization that is causing the anomaly, you are right.
However, to fix it they would have to go digging around transaction-level data, and anonymous or not, I’d rather they just aggregate & report. If something looks odd, they should work to fix the formula that categorizes, not individually adjust by examining the records.
Hopefully this is a reflection of Mint’s commitment to privacy.
San Jose’s large decline is probably due to all of the layoffs over the past year in silicon valley.
Yeah, and does “New York” mean Manhattan only? Maybe one day someone will dispel the idea that Manhattan is the only borough that makes up NYC.
…but I will add that I love stuff like this. (Thanks!)
Who knew Philadelphia spent so much on tech gadgets? I do know that we love trying to stuff really big LCD TVs in our tiny rowhomes!
And EDGE now works down in the subways here so you can text and email even underneath the ground!
We may not be a city, but we’re proud to be cheapskates!
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Brooklyn is not a city. It is a borough within the City of New York. Does the separate “New York” category really mean Manhattan, or all five boroughs of NYC (if the latter, then Brooklyn is being double counted).
Further, I highly doubt the data, which is drawn from mint.com users reflects “a representative sampling of US consumers”, which is what the accompanying verbage states. Really? Mint.com’s users gave them their annual incomes, household size and structure, age, race, and education details to make the comparison between your users and the US population as a whole? And one Mint actually made the comparison between the two, and one is representative of the other?
But of course, understanding these nuances would require that a bunch of 20-somethings in Mountain View, CA, actually know something about (1) East Coast geography and (2) statistical sampling techniques.
This is really sloppy work, which makes me NOT want to find out how sloppy their product may be. Intuit paid HOW MUCH for this sloppiness? (off to sell INTU shares ASAP!)
Miami is one of the top five poorest large cities in the nation, with a current 12% unemployment rate (the real rate is probably 20%). I find hard to believe that residents in Miami have been spending on average $130 / month just in electronics this year. Miami as the third in the nation on electronics expenditures? No way! The data must be skewed because Mint users might be in the upper income range, hence the Chicago book thingy. The economic situation in Miami is chaotic and getting worse.
All of this validates the reason I choose not to live in a city.
You do know that Brooklyn has not been an independent city since 1898 when it became consolidated into New York City along with Staten Island and Queens County.
Except on the opening sequence of Kotter
Lee Sherman, or someone who works for Mint: can you provide evidence that a survey of Mint users is, indeed, “a representative sampling of US consumers”? You deride a previous commenter for pointing out that your data is light on references, but, really, it is. Saying something doesn’t make it true.
And frankly, I find it a little bit hard to believe that the membership of this website is representative of anything besides the membership of this website.
The previous commenter didn’t say we were light on data — he or she said we didn’t provide sources or references and we do. You can decide for yourself whether it is “representative” or interesting.
Also, you absolutely MUST clean up the New York/Brooklyn inconsistency. That throws off the whole works right there…
So what are you saying constitutes “New York”? Five boroughs, four boroughs, one borough, or the whole state?
Thank you for this valuable post. It changed my way
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Seriously, the world doesn’t revolve around New York City. Give it up already. No one cares about your boroughs or cities or whatever they are. 20 comments and 3/4 of them are about the miscategorization of Brooklyn. I’m sure if one person brought it up, the mod would have been like “hey man, thanks for the heads up, we’ll correct the mistake.” You want to know what the comments show us about the people that live there? You definitely are not spending enough on chill pills in Brooklyn. I’m certain that is a representative sampling of the douche bags in the CITY of Brooklyn. and Mint, great study.
I now, this is a great article.A successful blog needs unique, useful content that interests the readers
Percent change will not represent the “frugality” of a city or state. Rather, it represents states that were/are least frugal prior to 2009. Therefore, you can determine that the states with least percent change could be considered as the least frugal.
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Thanks for the data points. I just wanted to chime in that, despite the quibbly comments, probably way more people (like the person who sent it to me, and the friends I sent it on to) will appreciate you taking the trouble to aggregate, comment upon, and publish this data. They just won’t bother to comment. Please keep it up!
IF not YOU will fail just like the other 90% who try to get into biz for themseleves !
San Francisco is definitely not a frugal city. It was packed at 10pm at $60/person House of Prime Rib tonight! We love to eat, and spend like the wind.
IF not YOU will fail just like the other 90% who try to get into biz for themseleves !
Generally speaking, one would expect the most frugal municipalities to have the lowest taxes… unless, in fact, they are quite corrupt.
Gerry, a very interesting post thanks for writing it!
these percentages are bound by how much allowance for discretionary spending each city has in the first place. richer cities may have more fluctuation because they have more disposable income, not because they are more frugal. the numbers would be better expressed as change in spending as percentage of income, year over year, adjusted for cost of living.
Calling the chart “Most Frugal Cities” is misleading. The title should name what the data represents, which is the change in absolute dollars spent on discretionary items.
For example, say that Saint Paul residents spent $100 per month in 2008, and $95 per month in 2009. That’s only a 5% decline, but the base of $100 is already low. Compare that to San Francisco, where residents spent $300 per month in 2008, and $200 per month in 2009. That’s a 33% decline but a 3x higher base. So, who is more frugal? The city with the greater change? or the city with the lower absolute spending?
even those with the best intentions end up lying with statistics.
@paul van @jack d- The map portrays the ‘most frugal cities’ as those that spent the least AND had the greatest decline in total spending. Note the text under the red heading:
“Red outline indicates cities with the lowest spending in 2009, that also cut back most in the last year. “
I’d say the cities with the least amount of year-to-year change are probably more frugal than my hometown of San Diego. We’ve been hit hard by layoffs and the high cost of living and real estate.
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How can any of this data be true when you have issues connecting with the bank I use all the time and fail to address this issue? Tons of New England customers use CitizensBank and you guys for a week lied and said they blocked mint.com when in fact they never did. Pretty sure you properly aggregated data from x amount of New England Citizenbanks customers that use mint!
I’d love to see the opposite of this map. I would be willing to bet that the DC area (where I live) is still not being very frugal. I’ve definitely cut down on my spending, but it doesn’t appear that much has changed in good ole Northern Virginia.
Of course people in Seattle and the whole of the Pacific Northwest are furgal, they have to save to pay for the exorbitant taxes the state imposes on it’s citizens. Seattle has embraced Socialism.
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You got me, I’m clicking thru.
My only concern is really about the representativeness of the data:
1. These are mint.com users
2. Therefore they are regular computer users
3. Therefore they are regular internet users
4. They also are regular engaging in internet banking
5. They must also have relatively private access to a computer (not at a library) to engage in said internet banking, so more than likely they are home internet users, which means an internet connection at home.
6. We could go on…
See how quickly this is not a representative sample of the US population at large? I love graphs and maps and together is beautiful, but let’s just be clear about what mint.com users are as a SUBSET of the US population. Mint.com isn’t dumb, they could help us out a bit by giving us some other comparative data, like how many of us mint.com users have what kinds of assets or debt or net worth. Then we could compare those data with the US averages and see how a typical mint.com user compares to a typical US citizen.
Thanks for the graph and map though. Again, it is very interesting to see what mint.com users are up to (in a privacy-respecting, aggregated way!).
You can decide for yourself whether it is “representative” or interesting.
Percent change will not represent the “frugality” of a city or state.
Interesting post, is instructive. Must tell a friend about your site.
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