Consulting a financial advisor or accountant is generally the best way to get financial advice. But they cost money at a time when you might be trying to spend less, and they aren’t the only way to expand your knowledge and ideas about how to order your finances. ChatGPT and other generative AI chatbots can help you develop a plan, if you use the right prompts.
Here are some ways you can use AI to learn more about improving your finances before the end of the year.
Use ChatGPT for Better Prompts
Simply entering a question in a ChatGPT window yields several financial tips, but ChatGPT can actually give you hints for better prompting and results specific to you.
First, ask the generative AI about your overall goal, keeping in mind that the more you enter regarding your situation and what you want to do, the more applicable the results will be. Make sure you’re very specific with this inquiry.
Prompt #1: Improve Finances at the End of the Year
The AI is only as useful as the information it is trained on. If you give ChatGPT a breakdown of your your broad financial situation, ensure you’re specific with your circumstances without giving away any sensitive information. You should experiment to find the most applicable recommendations. You can break it down into more than one sentence, with factors for ChatGPT to consider. For simplicity, this example uses one sentence with all considerations:
Prompt: “How do I improve my finances at the end of the year when my monthly expenses are just a few hundred less than my monthly income while contributing monthly to my retirement fund during the holidays and while still allowing me to shop for three children ages five, six, eight, one spouse, and two nieces ages ten and one.”
Here are the results (remember, they will likely be different for you):
- Review and reduce your monthly expenses
- Create a holiday budget
- Adjust investment strategy for the holidays
- Explore additional income streams
- Track your spending
ChatGPT gave short summaries about each of these statements, but it’s best to use them as prompts for more information. Prompting ChaptGPT about each one gives you more detailed and applicable results.
Prompt #2: Review and Reduce Monthly Expenses at the End of the Year
Prompt: “How do I review and reduce monthly expenses at the end of the year?”
With much more detail than was given in the first general prompt, ChatGPT recommended (with steps for each):
- Track your current expenses
- Evaluate necessities vs. luxuries
- Cut unnecessary subscriptions
- Shop smart for insurance
- Refinance or consolidate your debts
- Negotiate bills
- Reduce your energy costs
Prompt #3: Create a Holiday Budget
Prompt: “How do I create a holiday budget?”
Again, the results were much more specific, with steps included in each task:
- Determine your total holiday budget
- List all potential expenses
- Set spending limits for each category
- Track your spending
- Look for ways to save
- Plan for post-holiday expenses
- Build in flexibility
Prompt #4: Adjust Your Investment Strategy for the Holiday Season
Prompt: “How do I adjust my investment strategy for the holiday season?”
The results (with steps):
- Assess consumer spending trends
- Monitor market volatility
- Consider sector rotation
- Dividend stocks and ETFs
- Tax-loss harvesting
- Bond and fixed-income adjustments
- Stay focused on your long-term goals
- Cash reserves for opportunistic buying
- Revisit your risk tolerance
- Stay informed on consumer sentiment and economic data
Here’s one of the problems when using ChatGPT—it’s assuming you’re much more involved in investing than contributing $200 per month to your retirement account. You might need to adjust the prompt to be more specific:
“How do I adjust my retirement contribution for the holiday season?”
The results become much more appropriate for someone with a family contributing to a retirement plan, which is much more common than the previous results.
Prompt #5: Explore Additional Income Streams
Prompt: “Where do I find additional income streams to prepare for the holiday season?”
This prompt yielded many suggestions for generating additional holiday income, from pet sitting to virtual assistant services to freelancing and consulting. The results can inspire ideas for earning a little more at the end of the year.
Prompt #6: Track Your Spending
Prompt: “How do I track my spending?”
ChatGPT gave some excellent tips here that could apply to many people, such as:
- Use budgeting apps
- Manual tracking in apps or spreadsheets
- Credit or debit card alerts
- Use the envelope system
- Review your statements and spending weekly or monthly
- Set a budget
The Bottom Line
Using AI, such as ChatGPT, can be beneficial when you’re looking for ways to improve your finances before the end of the year. However, it’s essential to fact-check the results you get to ensure you’re not getting bad advice. Also, you may not get results that apply to your situation.
Remember that AI is trained and programmed by people, and in many cases, the results are aggregated from existing content on the internet, which should be verified.