7 Ways To Use ChatGPT To Build a Monthly Expenses Budget

Like it or not, AI is here to stay. But it doesn’t have to all be the stuff of dystopian nightmares — AI can actually be a super effective tool, especially when it comes to your finances.

According to a recent CFP study, more and more people are turning to AI for financial advice. In fact, 52% of respondents reported some level of interest in receiving financial planning advice from a generative AI tool, and 25% have received financial planning advice from said AI tool — of which 79% reported some level of satisfaction with the advice provided.

GOBankingRates talked to experts Phil Siegel and Dr. Andy Stapleton to get their insights on how to effectively use ChatGPT, an AI language model, to create a comprehensive monthly expenses budget. By leveraging the power of AI, individuals can better understand their spending habits, categorize expenses and identify areas for potential savings.

Here are seven ways to use ChatGPT to build a monthly expenses budget.

Phil Siegel, founder of AI nonprofit organization CAPTRS, said ChatGPT is great at breaking down your expenses into basic categories so you can see where — and how much! — you’re spending.

“If you break things down, most people have: housing, auto, credit card debt, food, gas, insurance, other essentials, nonessentials, education and so forth,” he said.

Dr. Andy Stapleton, an AI YouTuber with over 219,000 subscribers and 15 million views, recommended uploading an Excel document of your banking activity to ChatGPT for easy expense categorization and personalized money-saving suggestions.

By doing this, he said, “you can easily categorize your expenses and ask questions of the best places you could save money — the more data ChatGPT has, the better,” he said.

Once your data is uploaded, Dr. Stapleton said that ChatGPT can make a custom budget sheet to help you with your financial planning.

“With your data uploaded, you can also ask ChatGPT to give you a custom budget sheet to help you move forward,” he said.

Dr. Stapleton thinks that every time you talk to ChatGPT, you should treat it like a conversation with a friend. Ask follow-up questions and redirect the chatbot when necessary to obtain the desired output — putting a little effort into it will get you better results.

“Remember that working with a chatbot is like a conversation. So you have to make sure that you ask follow up questions and re-prompt and re-direct when it isn’t giving you exactly what you are asking for,” he said.

To get the best results from ChatGPT, Dr. Stapleton recommended using a prompt.

“The best prompt formula is: Context + what you want ChatGPT to do + how you want the output,” he said. “Eg: Here is my last 30 day bank statement — I want you to go through and categorize the expenses into different categories — give me an output in an Excel sheet that has the totals for each [category] and areas of potential biggest savings.”

Using this formula will ensure that you get the best results — and that your budget is spot on.

When you have a budget and are looking to save money, Siegel said, AI can be very helpful. For example, if you’re thinking of refinancing your auto loans, you can ask for help on how and where to do so.

“People can refinance an auto loan like a mortgage… There are companies that will refinance, and if the loan was done with high interest rates, you might save around $75-$100 a month,” he said.

Additionally, he suggested using websites with real-time gas price information to find the best deals, saying that while ChatGPT may not have up-to-date information, it can help locate these resources.

When it comes time to start shrinking your budget, ChatGPT can be a major help. Siegel pointed out that AI models can be useful in finding which sites offer the best deals for specific items.

“For non-essentials, there have always been shopping bots. These are crawlers. But the AI models are good at finding public reviews written by consumers on which sites are good for which types of items,” he said.

Or, if you’re looking for continuing education classes, Siegel shared that AI can create a list of good local options. You just have to remember that it might not have to the most up-to-date information, so just make sure to double check.