A large part of my work with clients is helping them explore what’s important to them and then working to align their finances to support their life.

A byproduct of this important process is a better understanding of the trade offs involved with their financial decisions. If they want to spend X dollars in retirement, what are the financial decisions and habits we need to establish today. Of if they want to retire at age Y, what do they need to do to get there and have confidence that it’s an achievable goal.

What’s interesting is that even though all the work I do is completely personalized and customized to an individual’s situation, I’m regularly asked something along the lines of “how do I compare to your other clients” or ” how do I stack up versus others”. In the past, my answer has always been to explain that the strategy we develop and regularly monitor is personalized to their situation and it wouldn’t be valuable to compare yourself to others because they could (and likely will) have completely different goals, priorities and financial resources to work with.

I’ve been giving financial advice for over 16 years, and people still ask me this question. I had a long-time client ask me this at lunch just a couple of weeks ago.

I still believe that your finances are truly “your finances” and that you shouldn’t spend a lot of time worrying about others or wondering where you stand when the measure is money. But I can appreciate our tendency to want to know these things.

Thankfully, now there’s a service that can help. It’s called Bundle.com (“Bundle”).

Bundle is a relatively new website, and their home page says this

Want to see how people like you save and spend their money?

Use Bundle to compare yourself by age, location, income and household status.

I’ve spent a little time on the site and it looks interesting.

Here’s a quick intro video that explains their service in a little more detail:

So if you ever find yourself wondering how your spending compares to your neighbors or if you save more or less than others in your income range, Bundle could prove to be a valuable tool to provide insight and answer those questions.

What do you think? Is Bundle a service you will use? Post thoughts and comments below.