So there I was at Chipotle – for the fifth time that week.  It’s conveniently down the street from my apartment in San Jose, which is great because I can’t cook to save my life.

“The usual, chicken burrito bowl?” asks the young man behind the counter.  “You bet”, I tell him.  When I find something I like, I stick with it.

Later that afternoon, I was using Mint.com (easily the best personal finance tool out there) to take a peek at my finances.  While reviewing my credit card spending, out of curiosity I clicked on “Chipotle transactions”.  Mint instantly informs me that I had been to Chipotle 39 times in the last 90 days, and had spent a total of $403.42 there.  Yowza!

My first thought – “Geez, I am definitely an addict.  Are they putting crack in those chicken burrito bowls?”

My second thought came from my background as an internet marketing entrepreneur and a student of direct marketing – “Wow.  They (Mint.com) have complete view into my spending habits and patterns, down to the level of my hopeless Chipotle addiction.  If they know I’ve been to Chipotle 39 times, then where is my free burrito bowl?”  Seriously…

I was only half joking to myself about that free burrito bowl, but it got me thinking…Mint.com is a phenomenal tool to help me “Manage my money”, but given what they know about me – they could do a lot more to help me “Save money”.  Now, most people (like me) use Mint to manage their money, and they do an incredible job at that.

In terms of savings, while i like Mint’s recommendations of various financial products that can save me money – I haven’t used any of the offers.  Switching financial accounts is about as much fun as a root canal.  Also, while the savings offers Mint recommends are personalized to me – they are fairly standard offers, and aren’t particularly great deals.  Banks and credit card companies aren’t known for offering “great deals”.  The real savings opportunities are on purchases of regular, everyday stuff – not necessarily financial products.

What’s a good example of a “great deal”?  Take a look at one of the hottest concepts out there these days – Groupon (www.groupon.com).  They have a daily deal that is discounted 40% to 90%.  That’s real savings…

So it got me thinking about a new type of online service that I’d like to use.  One that would effortlessly save me hundreds of dollars a year.  It would simply do 3 things…

1. Anonymously monitor my credit or debit card transactions (just like Mint)
2. Send me highly relevant & personalized money saving offers based on my spending patterns and interests – but all the offers would be discounted 40% to 90% (discounts like Groupon)
3. Since they are using “my data” to send me money saving offers, I would earn some passive income just for sharing my data with them.  This way, even if I never take them up on one of their offers, I still get something.

They’d be maniacal about data privacy & security, and of course would never spam me because they know I’d leave in a heartbeat…

So in a nutshell, that’s Offermatic.  In a way, I created it to scratch my own itch.

America is a nation addicted to debt.  The average credit card debt per household is $8,329.  We plan to do our small part to help change that by making it easier to save, using the very tool that is partly the culprit – your credit card.  We hope you’ll give us a try!