chatgpt built a budget for me as soon as possible, but there are some limitations

Artificial intelligence can help you I’ll manage your money In many different ways. It can be shown to you How to reduce grocery costs, Save for vacation And more Negotiate your bill. But that doesn’t necessarily mean success. And it’s essential to know where it falls, as there are things as important as your finances.

Last year I asked ChatGpt to help me Create a budgetboring and overwhelming tasks. It was useful in some respects, but not very big in other respects.

I tried the experiment again this year and noticed minor improvements, but although the answers were more visually appealing, mainly the icons and improved formats made the answers more visually appealing, the overall results were still mixed. This is how it went.

read more: How to create and learn a budget for 2025

Building budgets with ChatGpt

These are the steps I took to test ChatGpt’s budget production capabilities.

1. Please state your monthly income, expenses and savings goals

To get started, you need to give ChatGpt to your monthly financial number, take-out income, expenses and savings targets. I already have a budget I used Rocket Moneyso to see how ChatGpt builds budgets from scratch, I let it create it for a hypothetical person.

My prompt:

“My monthly income after tax is $3,500. Every month, I’m paying $1,000 for rent, $15 for renter insurance, $100 for utility, $150 for auto insurance, $100 for gasoline, $200 for student loans, $40 for phone bills, $300 for Grokelly, $100 for personal items.

result:

ChatGpt ran the numbers and said he had $1,095 left every month. I purposely vague my savings goals and saw what ChatGpt recommends. We proposed a way to allocate this amount to savings. Emergency Fund,contribution Resignation savings, Pay off your debt Make extra student loan payments. We also showed how to split $1,095 between these savings buckets.

2. I’ll clarify and adjust

I also forgot some spending categories from the first prompt to see if ChatGpt catches them. I didn’t do that. So I asked to help me.

My prompt:

“Have you missed other general budget categories?”

result:

ChatGpt generated a list of potential additional items and asked if they wanted to create placeholders and revised budgets for these categories. The revised budget, which includes estimates for savings goals and budget categories, recommended adding chatgpt, leaving us with $5 left. It’s not a lot of wiggle room, but I could always ask the AI ​​to adjust things and give me a big cushion.

3. Import the data into a spreadsheet

There are several ways to track your spending and monitor how well you are stuck with your budget. Budget app And old paper and pencil methods. A simple, free way is to create a Spreadsheet. This also helps ChatGpt.

My prompt:

“Create Google Sheets for your budget.”

result:

ChatGpt created code that you can copy and paste into Google Sheets.

They also provided instructions on how to format it.

I followed these instructions, but all the data appears in column A in the spreadsheet and I couldn’t understand what to do next. I had to ask ChatGpt how to fix this.

It was more work than I wanted, and since I’m still easy to read, I still had to make some formatting changes to the spreadsheet. But in the end, there was a work budget that could be adjusted as needed.

Pros and cons of creating a budget with ChatGpt

Creating a budget using ChatGpt was very easy. Although tweaks were needed on my part, overall, the AI ​​recommendations made sense and easy to understand. That said, it’s not for everyone, it has its own pitfalls. This is what you should keep in mind.

Strong Points

• It’s free. ChatGpt costs nothing. Also, if you choose to move your budget number there, there will be no Google Sheets either.
• It can be kept simple. ChatGpt’s initial budget proposal is fundamental. This makes your budget more accessible for beginners. You can dig deeper into the answer, but you can also use it to create a basic budget and get started.
• It helps you customize your budget. ChatGpt can offer everything from ways to save utilities to how much you can get to retire at different ages. But you need to ask to do it. Probably these tips were not adopted.

Cons

• The answer is just as good as your prompt. If you don’t speak the prompt correctly or provide incomplete or inaccurate information, ChatGpt answers are not as useful as possible. For example, when I omitted some general budget categories, I only identified them when I asked them. It didn’t automatically warn me that I might have left something. Many Budget app Provides preset categories that can be used as guidance.
• It’s more work on your side. The budgeting app can import transactions from your bank account, sort them into general categories, and suggest monthly spending limits based on past spending. With ChatGpt you will need to enter your own number. Additionally, if you move your budget to a spreadsheet, you will need to manually track each transaction and sort it into the appropriate category.
• Not suitable for ongoing budget maintenance. ChatGpt can generate budgets, but does not track transactions. Also, if you want to adjust your budget category, you should do it manually in a spreadsheet or ask the bot to generate a new budget. (Thankfully, ChatGpt will save your previous chat if you’re logged in. So, instead of filling everything back in, you can ask them to tweak information in the first chat.) If you need ongoing help in managing and maintaining your budget, you’d be better off using the budgeting app.
• The answer may differ. I created some budgets for ChatGpt to see how consistent the proposal was, and the answers were all different to chat and chat. If the initial answer that ChatGpt provides is confusing, it seems incomplete or doesn’t feel right to you, ask to rephrase it.
• Your information is not confidential. It can be used to train AI models using ChatGpt. This means it could be published. Furthermore, CHATGPT is susceptible to hackers and information leaks, and there is no security measure to find on reputable budgeting apps. Disable chat history to prevent information from being used to train your bot, but Openai stores it for up to 30 days.

Tips for building budgets using ChatGpt

AI is powerful, but you need to know how to use it to get the best results. Here are some best practices for creating a budget with ChatGPT.

• I’ll double check everything. Make sure you have the correct information at the prompt and that ChatGpt answer makes sense. Do the numbers sum up? Do the recommendations seem reasonable? A quick search for questions will help you compare ChatGPT advice against reputable sources.
• specifically. The more information your chatbot has, the more appropriate it will be for your financial situation. Include details such as your age, where you live, and hobbies that you prioritize spending, will help you customize that recommendation.
• reveal. Don’t hesitate to ask ChatGpt to clarify or paraphrase the answer. We don’t always provide information in a way that is easy to understand.
• Drill down. ChatGpt is not only useful for creating a budget. It also helps you stick to it. For example, you could ask how to cut your phone bills, increase your income, or free up more money for savings.
• Adjust. Revisit your budget regularly to make sure it’s still useful to you. If something changes – for example, get a side hustle that will bring you more income – update your budget to reflect that.

Verdict: Should I use ChatGpt to create a budget?

ChatGpt helps you create a budget, but there are many limitations and there are easier and more effective ways to do it. If you’re new to budgeting, simply googling “basic budget” will give you plenty of template ideas and tips.

If you need more guidance, the budgeting app is designed to help you do more work for you and stick to your budget on a continuous basis.

That said, CHATGPT can help you with some of the basics you need when tweaking your budget, such as suggesting ways to trim general expenses and the need to save each month for a specific savings goal.

However, you should reconfirm the advice that advice provides on more complex financial topics, such as how much money should be put into retirement due to your personal situation.