A beginner-friendly guide for everyday people
1. What AI Can Do for Your Personal Finances
AI is like having a 24/7 financial assistant that can:
✔ Analyse your spending
AI can read your bank statements and show you where your money goes—food, bills, subscriptions, nights out, etc.
✔ Create budgets tailored to your life
Instead of generic templates, AI can create a custom monthly plan based on your salary, goals, and habits.
✔ Suggest ways to save money
AI can find unnecessary expenses, unused subscriptions, or cheaper alternatives.
✔ Plan financial goals
Saving for a house, new car, emergency fund, or vacation—AI can create step-by-step plans.
✔ Automate repetitive tasks
AI can:
- track expenses,
- remind you to pay bills,
- calculate how much you can save monthly,
- generate reports.
✔ Help with investments (not financial advice)
AI can explain:
- ETFs, stocks, bonds,
- risk levels,
- diversification,
- how compound interest works.
It does NOT tell you what exactly to buy but helps you understand.
2. Tools You Can Use
Here are practical AI tools anyone can use—even beginners:
➡ ChatGPT (best for explanations, planning, budgeting)
You can ask:
- “Analyze my expenses and create a budget.”
- “Explain ETFs like I’m a beginner.”
- “Help me plan to save €3000 in 6 months.”
➡ Google Sheets + AI / Excel Copilot
Perfect for:
- automated budget tables,
- expense categorization,
- charts,
- monthly reports.
➡ Personal finance apps using AI
Examples: Copilot Money, Cleo, RocketMoney, Monarch Money.
They help with:
- subscription tracking
- spending insights
- auto-budgeting
➡ Bank apps with built-in AI assistants
Many banks now explain transactions and predict bills.
3. How to Start Using AI (Step-by-Step)
Step 1 — Export your bank transactions
Download your last 30–90 days of spending:
- CSV file
- Excel file
- or copy/paste the statement
Step 2 — Ask AI to categorize your expenses
Example prompt:
“Here is my bank statement. Categorize each expense into food, transport, utilities, subscriptions, entertainment, and other. Then show totals per category.”
AI will do the breakdown automatically.
Step 3 — Ask AI to create a personalized budget
Example prompt:
“Based on these expenses and a monthly income of €____, create a realistic budget and tell me where I can save the most.”
AI will propose:
- how much to spend on each category,
- where to cut costs,
- how much to save monthly.
Step 4 — Let AI create a financial goal plan
Examples:
- “Help me save €2000 by December.”
- “Create a 12-month plan to build an emergency fund.”
- “How can I pay off my credit card debt fastest?”
AI calculates:
- timeline,
- monthly targets,
- optimized strategy.
Step 5 — Use AI for financial education
Ask anything you don’t understand:
- “What is a bond?”
- “What is the difference between ETFs and mutual funds?”
- “Explain compound interest in simple words.”
AI becomes your teacher.
Step 6 — Automate with AI
You can ask AI to:
- generate monthly reports,
- create Excel formulas,
- schedule reminders,
- build dashboards in Google Sheets.
Example:
“Create a Google Sheets dashboard where I enter income and expenses, and it automatically calculates my savings rate.”
4. What AI Cannot Replace
AI is powerful, but it’s not a human financial advisor. It cannot:
- make guaranteed investment predictions,
- tell you which stock to buy,
- foresee market crashes,
- know your full financial history.
You are still the decision-maker.
5. Practical Prompts You Can Use Today
Copy and paste these:
1. Budget Setup
“Create a monthly budget for a person who earns €____ and spends €____ on rent, €____ on food, and €____ utilities. Include saving goals.”
2. Debt Strategy
“I have a €____ debt with ____% interest. Create a payoff plan using the snowball or avalanche method.”
3. Investment Education
“Explain ETFs, index funds, and bonds in simple language like you’re teaching a beginner.”
4. Savings Plan
“I want to save €5000 this year. Create a step-by-step monthly plan.”
5. Monthly Report
“Here are my expenses for the month. Create a summary, show the top categories, and suggest improvements.”
6. Homework / Practice Tasks
To master AI for personal finance, practice these:
Task 1:
Upload your last 30 days of expenses and ask AI to analyze them.
Task 2:
Ask AI to create a custom monthly budget.
Task 3:
Ask three beginner investment questions.
Task 4:
Make an automated Google Sheet:
- income tracker
- expense categorizer
- savings calculator
AI can generate all the formulas for you.