Discover the Spend Analyzer Tool...and discover just how much you spent on makeup last year

In this current time of economic stress I am always looking for new ways to save money and manage the money we have.  It isn’t exactly the best time economically to be a stay at home mom, so I make the most of what we have and am forever trying to be better organized with our spending, as well as our home, a battle I may never win.  One of the ways my husband and I keep track of our spending is by using only one credit card for purchases.  We decided on the Discover Card because of their cash back rewards program, which has been advantageous to us over the years.  (They help me justify my Sephora addiction by letting me use my cashback rewards towards the purchase of Sephora electronic gift certificates.  I love Sephora almost as much, sometime more, than a good yarn shop.)  Discover recently introduced a Spend Analyzer tool on their website that provides additional help with managing finances. 

I have been using the Discover Card website to manage our account and pay our bill for a while now.  In playing around with the new Spend Analyzer tool, I have realized that using just one credit card has another advantage—tracking our spending in detail.  The Spend Analyzer breaks down one’s spending into categories in one, three, six, nine, 12 and 24 month increments.  The categories, determined by the merchant, include automotive, education, warehouse clubs, merchandise/retail, services, travel, and restaurants, to name some.  The categories are then further divided by each merchant used.  By selecting a month and category, such as department stores, I can see where and what I have spent over the course of the month. With a few more mouse clicks, I can switch to view my spending for the year in that category.   By choosing automotive, I learned that we have spent much more on maintenance for my husband’s car than my Honda over the past two years.  I use a warehouse club to purchase diapers (and formula when my son used that.)  I was able to track my spending there, since I tended to use my Discover Card there for most purchases.

What I find useful with the Spend Analyzer tool is the way it tracks my spending in such detail.  I never paid much attention to where our money went in the past, especially when it was just two of us and I was still working (my dad called us DINKs then: dual income, no kids.)  Now that we have one income and a son, being aware of where we spend our money is really important, especially if we want to figure out where we can cut back.  When I reviewed our total spending over the past 24 months, I have to admit I was initially horrified.  We spent THAT much in two years?  I had no idea we were spending that much money on credit card purchases.  When I looked at the break down in our spending patterns, I was still shocked, but it made more sense to see just where our money was going.  What was clear when reviewing the past 24 months was that we have drastically cut back on our spending with restaurants and entertainment.  I was also able to see when I cancelled our AOL service that we paid for monthly for several years, despite not really using the service. While that charge was only $5 a month, in looking back over the course of time, it really added up to wasteful spending. I am hoping that when I look at the 24 month spending spread in a year that we will have reduced our wasteful spending significantly. 

Do you remember pie charts and bar graphs from math class?  The Spend Analyzer uses these to break down your spending.  The pie charts tell me a break down in over all categories of spending and in each individual category for the time period I choose.  So, for my holiday shopping, I can pull up the month of December ’08 and see that in the merchandise/retail category I had 19 transactions with 12 different merchants.  It tells me how much was spent at each retailer.  So if I wanted to compare my spending this past holiday season to a year ago, I can use the bar graph to slide back to December ’07 and see that I spent less and with some different merchants, but that Barnes and Noble and Amazon are consistent retailers for me.  Besides being easy to use, the pie charts are very colorful and appeal to my artistic eye.  While I did read the help guides in order to write this review, I have to say the overall tool is extremely easy to use without much guidance. 

While examining our spending in the Merchandise/Retail category, I noticed that some of the items listed I would not consider to be merchandise/retail.  For example, one charge is for my son’s music class fee.  I would prefer that this item be listed under education or services.  I realize that Discover does not assign the category, but being able to re-categorize or personalize the individual items would be more helpful to me.  One resolution to this issue is to download the pdf version or print the analysis sheet out and create my own spending sheet in Exel or some similar way.  I do appreciate being able to save a pdf version of the analysis to my computer for further exploration.  While I do not need a print out, I could see how having this option would be helpful to some people. 

I have noticed that I tend to use my debit card for small purchases, such as gas, while my husband is more consistent in using our Discover Card for gas.  If we both used the Discover Card, the Spend Analyzer tool would be much more effective in creating and tracking our budget for gasoline. 

One thing that the Spend Analyzer does not do is list returns, balance transfers, Cash advances and miscellaneous charges.  This is clearly stated.  I noticed an extra charge on my account via the Spend Analyzer and was able to further investigate it by retrieving my statement online from the appropriate time period to see that a merchant had double charged my account, but corrected the mistake and refunded my account.  Using these two tools together, the Spend Analyzer and the Statements listings, is particularly helpful to me when tracking my credit card purchases. 

Overall I am very impressed with Discover Card’s new financial tool, the Spend Analyzer.  It has become very useful to me in monitoring our spending and hopefully will help us develop and stick to a better budget.  If you use a Discover Card, it is a worthwhile online tool to check out.

I have written this review in conjunction with the Blogher review program.  This is a paid review from BlogHer and Discover.  This SAHM needs to make money somehow and thankfully I can write!  Despite receiving payment, I stand by my honest review and truly believe that the Spend Analyzer is a very useful online tool.  It may not keep me from shopping at Sephora, but it will help me keep track of how much I spend there!  Please check out the other reviews from the BlogHer program!  My knitting/parenting blog is here!

Comments

[Alex]

Thanks for sharing. It is useful for me.

[Jordans 2]

What a pity I miss seeing all those gorgeous knits! Thanks for sharing the photos.

[Payday Loans]

Useful tool for definite!

[chanel bags]

I really enjoy reading you blog which spirit me up and pursue for future.You really an outstanding person just the same as your articles.I really have a nice time with you.Thank you very much!

[cash advance loan]

I'm so sorry to hear that. I didn't know there's actually a tool which can monitor spending. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a helpful tool for me as well. Though I still rely on cash advance loan to meet my financial needs, especially if there are extra expenses in the house. Impulsive buying is sometimes the culprit of my over spending. I try to save money these days but having kids means you have to bring them to school which gives quality education.

- Sofia Britts