I Asked ChatGPT for My 2026 Budget: Here’s What It Said
Written by
Jordan Rosenfeld
Edited by
Molly Sullivan
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The new year presents a great opportunity to recast your budget and plan for the year ahead. As I was retooling mine, I asked ChatGPT what it recommended for my 2026 budget, but I didn’t want to share too many of my personal details.
Instead, I created a version of me, someone who shares some of my same details, such as living and working in California and earning a typical wage for a woman in the 45 to 54 age group, to get a rough idea. I also asked ChatGPT to run two budget scenarios, one for a single income parent and one married, with two incomes, both supporting a teenage child. Here’s what it shared.
Grounding the Budget in Reality
To make the exercise realistic, ChatGPT anchored the budget to publicly available wage data rather than my personal financial information. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s FRED database, women ages 45 to 54 who work full time had median usual weekly earnings of about $1,192 in the third quarter of 2025, or roughly $62,000 annually.
That places this hypothetical “me” firmly in the middle class, but the lower end. In my state, according to past GOBankingRates data, the middle class ranges from around $62,000 on the low end to over $192,000 on the high end, a very wide range. So “hypothetical me” falls somewhere between scraping by and somewhat insulated from rising housing, healthcare and food costs. Supporting a teenager adds another layer of complexity and costs in my state, where cost of living is significantly above national averages.
Rather than recommending a strict dollar-by-dollar budget, ChatGPT built a percentage-based framework, designed to be flexible while still imposing guardrails.
The 2026 Budget Framework
Here’s how ChatGPT suggested allocating take-home pay across major expenditures:
Housing (30%-40%): Anyone who lives here in California knows that housing prices take a huge bite out of incomes. ChatGPT drew on GOBankingRates’ own research plus Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data to point out that housing consistently represents the largest share of household spending in the state, driven by high rents, home prices and property taxes. California rents also exceed national averages across most metro areas.
Food (10%-13%): This includes groceries and dining out. With a teenager at home, food spending tends to rise naturally, but ChatGPT flagged dining out and convenience meals as an area where costs quietly balloon without much notice.
Transportation (10%-12%): Car payments, insurance, gas and maintenance add up quickly in California, especially for families with teens. ChatGPT suggested prioritizing reliability over upgrades and keeping vehicles longer to reduce pressure elsewhere.
Healthcare (8%-10%): For women in their early 50s, as I am, healthcare costs often rise before Medicare eligibility kicks in, ChatGPT said. This category needs built-in slack for copays, prescriptions and surprise medical bills.
Teen-Related Costs (6%-10%): School expenses, activities, technology and clothing tend to come in waves. While my son is not highly materially driven, as an only child, I tend to say yes more than I might if I had two children. ChatGPT treated this as a flexible but protected category, closely tied to a household’s buffer fund.
Savings and “Future You” (10%-15%): Rather than focusing on maximizing savings contributions, ChatGPT suggested I focus on consistency. Even modest, steady retirement and emergency savings help preserve long-term stability during years when cash flow can feel tight. And trust me, there are plenty of those years.
Discretionary Spending (5%-8%): Entertainment, subscriptions and “just because” purchases fall here. As a Gen Xer born before the internet, I’m a pretty cheap date — I prefer books over most other forms of entertainment. Capping this category creates room for enjoyment without undermining essential goals.
Buffer for Irregular Expenses (3%-5%): This category exists to absorb the inevitable surprises, such as car repairs, medical costs or school fees, without forcing debt or savings withdrawals.
While these percentages look doable, the dollar amounts per category are pretty low when you break it down, forcing extreme budgeting and prioritizing saving.
Single vs. Married
When ChatGPT compared the single- and married-income versions of me, both supporting a teen, the core framework stayed the same, but the margins widened slightly for the married scenario. A second income offered more cushion for savings and discretionary spending, while the single-income version required tighter discipline around housing and lifestyle expenses.
The takeaway wasn’t that one scenario was “better,” but it’s undeniable that having a second income in a high-cost state like California, especially when raising kids, can make the difference between just surviving and thriving.
If this exercise showed me anything, it’s that budgeting is essential for any household, but especially when you live in a high-cost state.
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