Anyone used AI to look at their budget/bank statements?

[notallthosewhotravelarelost]

I keep making budgets and they look fine with a good buffer. But we're overspending and I need to figure out where.
Is there an AI tool I can use to analyse our bank statements without scammers stealing all my money?

TIA

If you keep overspending then you need to go through each line item over the last few months to try to figure out why/shat you’re overspending and if it’s essential spending then adjust your budget to ensure it’s realistic and if it’s not essential spending then be more aware to stop/cut it.

One easy way is to download your statement into excel or google sheets, categorize each line item properly so you can see totals by category and identify where you’re overspending against budget for each category.

Even with AI you need to be aware of where every cent goes each month.

This is exactly what I want AI to do for me. Surely there is a tool that can help. Or should I be creating one? 😃

You could use something like YNAB

I’d just put in the statements to AI and ask it to give you a summary of where you’re spending money and where you can save. You can probably also feed it your budget and ask it to compare your allocated spends with actual spends.

However it will make some mistakes, it will be able to search the internet to know what kind of places you’re spending money eg it can see that www.boots.com is a pharmacy but then it may assume you are spending on medicines when you’ve actually bought make up. It may also make assumptions about what you’re spending cash on unless you give it explicitly instructions otherwise. So it might take a few iterations and you’ll need to check outputs carefully.

YNAB might be a good framework for categories but if you don’t use AI you’d still need to do the legwork of looking at each line item.

But yeah in theory this is something ChatGPT may be able to help with if you give it the right information

Many banks do this but depends which one, a lot of the internet banks, Monzo, chase, starling ect will put each spend into a category so you can see where your money's going, they also have pots/spaces where you can split money once it comes in so you can budget food/petrol/pets etc.
Might be worth seeing if your bank does this or switch to one that does.

I would search for personal finance and budgeting tools. There are lots that will take in your statements and categorise them, give totals, let you see if any categories have crept up etc.

(I would not use chatgpt for the purposes of the maths calculations - this is a different kind of "AI" - however once you've got summarised factual information, you could consider using it as a sounding board to get general tips about how to cut down, etc)

What bank/s do you use? It may be that you have this functionality already in your app.

Something like the snoop app might be good for you

To give some specific tool recommendations: Snoop and Emma both often are recommended on personal finance subreddits.

I personally use Monzo, one of the paid tiers, and it pulls in ALL my other accounts including credit cards and lets me create custom categories to track them across all the accounts. I pay £5 a month but I think I'm on a legacy plan.

I do this manually each month. Download data into a spreadsheet and indicate what each line is for, then do totals. It takes about 45 minutes per month and as well as checking against budget, also shows up fraud and mistakes. Better than AI.

However it will make some mistakes, it will be able to search the internet to know what kind of places you’re spending money eg it can see that www.boots.com is a pharmacy but then it may assume you are spending on medicines when you’ve actually bought make up. It may also make assumptions about what you’re spending cash on unless you give it explicitly instructions otherwise. So it might take a few iterations and you’ll need to check outputs carefully

Which means it will be more accurate and likely quicker to download a year's worth of transactions from your bank account, credit cards etc into a spreadsheet and sort/categorise that way.

Just print them put, use a highlighter pen and a calculator. You only need to do it once. I did that once - it's usually quite obvious, in my case it was eating out.

I have always done this. every few days I spend a few minutes going through my bank statement and enter into a spreadsheet. My spreadsheet is categorized, so utility spending, food shopping, leisure shopping etc. I have a budget against each so I can see if I am going to overspend.

Thanks all. I'm looking at all the suggestions. I'm in New Zealand so with Kiwibank. Probably not the most cutting edge tech from a government sponsored bank. :-)

Ahh, New Zealand.

If it were me I would probably go with something like YNAB where you can manually upload a file of transactions, rather than something that syncs with your bank.

I have seen PocketSmith and SortMe recommended if you REALLY want an app, however, because NZ was slower than Australia and the UK in implementing open banking and the consumer data right (in Aus/NZ), you have to use tools where you give your banking password to a third party provider. They aren't random fly-by-night companies but it's still your full password which if leaked could let them make transactions etc.

In the UK/Aus you don't have to do this as there is a way to just authorise read-only data that all the banks support for free, without giving your password up.