Patent ID: 8209229

Claim:
A computing system implemented process for estimating the actual cost of a product or service comprising: one or more computing processors; and one or more memories coupled to the one or more computing processors, the one or more memories having stored therein processor executable code which, when executed by the one or more computing processors, perform a process comprising: obtaining financial data associated with one or more contributing consumers, the financial data associated with the one or more contributing consumers comprising data representing one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of one or more specific products or services by the one or more consumers, the financial data further comprising the contributing consumer's total assets, the contributing consumer's total liabilities/debt, the contributing consumer's net worth and the contributing consumer's average discretionary spending; categorizing the one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of one or more specific products or services by the one or more consumers according to the specific product or service purchased through a given financial transaction, the categorization resulting in the one or more financial transactions being individually categorized according to a product type appropriate for each transaction; aggregating the data representing one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of one or more specific products or services from one or more of the one or more consumers according to the specific product or service purchased through a given financial transaction; storing the categorized and aggregated data representing one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of one or more specific products or services from one or more of the one or more consumers; in response to a user consumer initiated search for purchase price data associated with a given product or service, the user consumer initiated search at least including at least one of total assets, total liabilities/debt, net worth and average discretionary spending, searching the categorized and aggregated data representing one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of one or more specific products or services from one or more of the one or more consumers for data representing one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of the given product or service from one or more of the one or more consumers; and providing the user consumer at least part of the data representing one or more financial transactions associated with the purchase of the given product or service from one or more of the one or more consumers.