Why Your Fancy Banking App Isn't Helping You Budget Better

One of the promises of online banking is that you can get an app to do your budgeting for you. It's something that feels necessary in a post-Great Recession world: Real household incomes have been falling over the last decade and a half, and people have to keep track of their money because they have less to spend than they once did. The idea is that by tracking your spending, you can avoid the kind of profligacy that leads to budget downfall. Unfortunately for most Americans, budgeting isn't really the problem. Keeping track of every happy hour drink may help on the margins, but for most people, financial problems are caused by things like losing a job or getting sick. The real problem is not that you aren't budgeting -- it's that the costs of housing, college and health care have skyrocketed in the last 50 years. No app can keep you from overspending on rent, needing to pay back student loans or medical debt, or suffering through bouts of unemployment. That hasn't stopped banks from trying. Ally Bank’s new app, Splurge Alert, is sort of like a reverse-Yelp. It uses geolocation to alert people when they're approaching stores and restaurants where they tend to spend money unnecessarily. Warning! You're entering a high-spending zone! In the promotional video, Drew Scott, the co-star of popular HGTV show "Property Brothers," admits to a bad habit of buying antique swords. ("I’m not a violent person," he says. "I just like deadly medieval weapons.") It’s an inte...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news