Patent ID: 7672870

Claim:
A method for monitoring consumer purchasing activity of an item, said method comprising: associating, at a processor, a retail item identifier with a corresponding manufacturer item identifier, wherein said retail item identifier is a stock keeping unit (SKU) associated with a retailer of said item and encoded into a bar code associated with said item, and wherein said manufacturer item identifier is associated with a manufacturer of said item, and wherein said manufacturer item identifier is a universally accepted Universal Product Code (UPC) associated with a manufacturer of said item and encoded into a bar code associated with said item, and wherein said manufacturer and said retailer are different entities; associating, at said processor, said manufacturer item identifier with a budget category for each of a plurality of said manufacturer item identifiers and each of a plurality of budget categories; receiving, at said processor, budget information; assigning, at said processor, said budget information including a budget to said budget category, based upon said manufacturer item identifier; receiving, at said processor, purchase data which includes a consumer ID, said retailer item identifier, and a purchase price; retrieving, at said processor, said manufacturer item identifier corresponding to said retail item identifier; assigning, at said processor, said purchase data to said budget category based upon said manufacturer item identifier corresponding to said budget category and adding said purchase price to a current budget balance to obtain an updated budget balance; determining, at said processor, that said budget is exceeded by said updated budget balance; and creating, at said processor and in response to said determination, a report which includes said budget category, said purchase data, said updated budget balance, and an indication that said updated budget balance exceeds said budget.