AI can be used for many terrible ideas, but I’ve found a pretty great way to use AI to help me out. I fed Claude AI my various non-identifying financial information, and I asked it a few questions to see where I can cut and how to optimize the family finances.
Wait, what?
Let’s get into the details.
Feed Claude AI Your Information
Using Claude AI, I created a project called Money Management, and I uploaded my bank statements and credit card statements. Because I’m paranoid about identity theft, I did go into the PDFs of my statements, and black out my name, account number, and address.
Maybe not necessary. But it made me feel better.
I didn’t just upload the most recent statements. I uploaded about two years worth, so Claude AI would have a more comprehensive picture of how we spend money.
Then I started to ask questions…
AI Prompts for Money Management
Asking your AI prompts, or questions can help you quickly get a big picture of how you handle money, and what money moves you might make next. It can’t give you stock picks (and if it does, maybe ignore that! yikes!).
I started out asking Claude,
So Claude, I have several credit cards. I have no trouble paying over minimum payments, and I always pay far more than the minimum on everything. I actually have a total of 10 credit cards, but all but three have 0 balances on them. I’ve uploaded my banking and card statements from around the time balances started accruing. Can you look over all of this, and for starters, give me a breakdown of what I spend my money on using credit cards vs banking?
After all of this, Claude to the best of it’s ability gave me a very good overview of where my money went (the hurricane that knocked over a tree that cost a small fortune to have removed, the bathroom that needed to be gutted, car repair after driving from Michigan to Georgia a few times in a clunker I paid cash for, the moving van rental).
The best part, for me, was having Claude tell me what they saw as positive trends, areas of concern, and overall recommendations going forward. This was so helpful to hear from an neutral third party. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I tend towards legalism and feeling unnecessary guilt over stupid things, and this is one of those areas. Claude helped.
Claude also really highlighted for me how much I was spending on credit card interest payments, which made me want to puke.
I‘ve mentioned in another post that I try to not just pay minimum payments when I’m unable to pay off the whole thing (such as spending a few thousand having that tree dealt with). But I do pay at least the interest for the month and any additional small purchases that go on there, since I use some cards for gas, groceries, and dining for the rewards.
Next, I asked,
Now, give me a plan for paying this off.
And Claude gave me several options, with breakdowns based on how much I would be charged in interest before these few cards were paid off. This way, I was able to see what method would both pay things off as fast as possible and cost me the least amount of money in interest.
In the middle of the pages of recommendations, Claude kept referring to a promotional balance on one of my cards that was due to expire in October. I was drawing a blank on that so I asked for clarity, wondering if Claude was hallucinating as AI tends to do.
Claude, you keep mentioning 0% promotional balance expiring in October on the ***** card. Are you sure? What is that? Do I have to apply for it?
Weirdly, in the fine print of my statement, AI discovered that my tree situation was given a promotional 0% interest, but the way the card was written up, until all of the interest balances were brought to 0, that balance didn’t get paid down, unless I specified.
And I didn’t specify as I didn’t know. Well played, Credit Card Company.
I would have never read the fine print on that one. So, I took the money for the promotional balance within a few months, called the company, and paid the promo balance off. Whew.
Finally I asked,
Okay so what is the minimum payments you recommend for these three to start?
And I was given a very specific debt paydown plan to tackle this as fast as possible, within our budget, and while saving as much as possible on interest. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, because our totals were under $10,000 but having balances gives me the heebie jeebies, because of our history. But it was one less weight on my brain.
AI Prompts for Financial and Personal Growth
I love to use AI as a tool to bounce ideas off of, not for content creation. It worked great for this getting out of debt plan, and helping me see patterns in how many “emergencies” we average in a year, and thus how much of an emergency fund we should try to have too.
Some other prompts I’ve used were not completely helpful, but they were generally pretty helpful. I heard about this one on the news, and I thought I’d give it a shot. Not every suggestion applied to my life, but I just used the parts that were helpful.
Claude, in my project I created, not only had my banking records, but also info about my business and what I do, and our goals as a family. So I asked:
Claude, can you give me a daily challenge for the next 30-60 days (Whatever you think appropriate) to help me make more money, save more money, and pay off debts, in addition to the plan we already made?
Claude then printed out for me a list of mostly quick daily activities I could do to help myself grow and achieve these goals faster, based on what it already knew about me.
Unlike the prompts on the news story I read, I was given challenges that allowed me to also optimize my business, and focus on profitable income streams, while trimming my expenses. One of the suggestions Claude made was about eating out.
Now, when I was in extreme poverty mode and super legalistic, that me would have said, “Don’t go out to eat.” And, to be fair, if my circumstances were that extreme I would agree. However, it’s been good for my mental health to go for lunch every Sunday after church with a group of ladies. I needed that connection, emotionally, spiritually, etc.
I explained this to Claude,
Hey Claude, I love the suggestion about cutting dining out, and I’m hoping you have a suggestion. I’m new to town, and going out on Sundays after church has been a great way to make connections and get to know people. I’d rather not cut it but eating out is bad for my wallet and my waist. Suggestions?
Claude’s suggestion was to order water, which I already did, and to order an appetizer instead. I’ve been amazed at how well that works, because it’s plenty of food, cheaper, and less calories if I choose the right one.
This is just an example of using a tool like this to figure out practical solutions that fit your lifestyle, instead of trying to fit your lifestyle into someone else’s Common Rule.
Ethical AI Considerations
I have a love hate relationship with AI. As a creator and artist, I find it problematic because friends have had their artwork and photography stolen, but I’m not going to get into all of that right now.
What you need to know is that AI cannot create. It can only take from others. So if you’re asking it to “create” something, it’s doing this by taking it from what someone else is doing. Most AI models were trained off of art, pictures, and ebooks without the actual creator’s permission.
However, when you upload your own information into it, and then ask questions about that information, this is not nearly as problematic. You still should verify accuracy, of course.
I like to use AI, when I do use it, as my non-annoying co-worker sitting across the desk from me, serving as my sounding board.
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