If job security even exists in journalism these days, my job at SmartMoney had it. The work was interesting, my editors and co-workers were smart and funny. I liked going to work every day. And four months ago, I gave it up to join a Web startup without offices or even a name — just five employees, healthy funding, and an ambitious goal: to transform the way people in their 20s and 30s think about personal finance.
Today, we meet the world. We’ve got a name: Bundle. We’ve also got something you’ve never seen before: an interactive database of spending trends across the country. I can find out what my neighbors my age are spending on groceries; I can confirm (or debunk) my stereotypes about stroller-pushers in Park Slope and hipsters in Williamsburg. I can indulge my curiosity about people who are nothing like me or as I call them, rich people.
Is it voyeurism? Sure. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Most people I know in their 20s and 30s are desperate for information about how, where and how much people like us are spending and saving (myself included); Bundle offers that context. It’s already a robust tool, and we’re not closed to finished yet. We’ll be adding savings data next, with monthly mortgage and rent costs soon to follow.
Obviously, numbers only say so much. And though I like to think of myself as a datageek, as managing editor, I’m primarily interested in what lies behind the numbers, the intensely personal financial decisions that reflect of our unique circumstances and values. At Bundle, we’re reporting on how people manage their money, the decisions they make, where they mess up, and how they thrive — people like Joe Eaton, who gave up his commuter Camry to save for a Porsche, and Alice Oglethorpe, who’s spending a $1,000 birthday windfall on an expensive new purse. The intense privacy around money can, sometimes, make us feel like we’re all alone figuring this stuff out. These stories should go along way toward correcting that myth.
Awfully earnest, no? Rest assure my inner iconoclast has a whole ‘nother agenda, which is to make all this stuff not-boring. Entertaining, even. That means no pinstripes, no jargon, no nasty acronyms. This is life-with-money: a mix of relationships, misunderstandings, etiquette, messed-up structures and systems, consumers tapping their inner George Bailey, Wall Streeters acting ridiculously, pet peeves, generosity, cheapskates and bargain-hunting. This is navigating a new landscape, one in which we give to charity via text message, disagree about how to split the check, and pay credit card companies and the airlines charging for just about everything. This is about the morality of stealing a pirated DVD, the aggravation of opening your first investment account, the confusion about the paragraphs of fine print on every single financial product on the market. It’s occasionally hilarious. Sometimes it’s sad. So: follow our tumblr or Twitter or Facebook. You’ll like it. I promise.
