3 AI Prompts To Help You Save Money on Your Holiday Shopping
Written by
Sean Bryant
Edited by
Jenna Klaverweiden
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Holiday shopping can get expensive fast if you’re not careful. But what if you could use artificial intelligence (AI) to help you spend less and save money? Tools like ChatGPT can do more than just answer questions. They can help you compare prices, plan your gift list and even find the best days to shop. All you need are the right prompts.
By giving AI clear instructions, you can get holiday shopping advice, discount ideas and budget-friendly gift suggestions that actually make sense for you. Here are three simple AI prompts you can use today to save money and stress less during your holiday shopping.
Find the Best Deals on [Product] This Week
Although AI can be a valuable tool, it still has limitations on what it can accomplish. If you don’t have specific gift ideas in mind, you might want to use it to find the best deals on certain types of items. For example, you could use the following prompt: “Pretend you’re a shopping expert and love finding the best deals. Find the best deals on [product] this week.”
For the product, you’ll just add what you want to buy for someone. It could be sporting goods equipment, video games or skin care products.
Unfortunately, AI isn’t able to scrape real-time data from every site. However, it is capable of summarizing the best current deals based on recent listings or known sale patterns.
Then, to achieve the best and most useful results, adjust your prompt to filter the results based on what you want. For example, if you’re looking for the best deal on Apple AirPods, you could use the following prompt: “Find the best deals on Apple AirPods under $150 this week. Exclude anything that’s refurbished.”
You can then ask it to show you a comparison of different retailers and provide advice on when these stores typically have the biggest sales on AirPods.
Compare Cash-Back and Rewards Programs for [Retailer or Card Type]
The next AI prompt will help you summarize different cash-back portals and credit card rewards programs to see where you can save the most money. Because you can stack a cash-back portal with credit card rewards, you can even ask AI to calculate your total savings.
To get started, use the following prompt: “Pretend you’re a shopping expert that’s knowledgeable about cash-back portals (Capital One Shopping, Rakuten, TopCashback, etc.) and credit card reward programs. Compare cash-back rewards for shopping using a Chase Freedom card vs. a Capital One Savor card. I want to know which card will offer me the most rewards.”
You could also add another layer to this prompt by asking if any of these programs have current holiday deals or if any retailers offer their own rewards. You could also ask which of your credit cards has better shopping perks, such as an extended return window or price protection.
Plan a Shopping Schedule Around the Best Sales Days
One of the worst things you can do for your budget is to impulse buy without a plan. To help avoid this, you can use AI to plan out a shopping schedule based on when stores usually run sales on specific items.
For example, you could use the following prompt: “Pretend you’re a shopping expert. I’m planning to purchase toys for my kids and new Apple AirPods for my wife for Christmas. Please come up with a schedule for when I should be purchasing these gifts based on when major stores like Target, Best Buy and anything similar have the best sales.”
This prompt will utilize historical data to determine when different stores typically offer the best discounts on toys and electronics.
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