Can AI help you plan how to deal with your loan repayment?
The loan is a common burden, and most people have several repayments that they have to do hostage, car loan, credit card, student loan, credit lines and individual loans every month. Personal finance is not widely taught in schools, but management of your money is an essential life skills. Spreadsheets and apps are helpful in saving, budgeting and repaying loans, but often less in providing tangible information. Can artificial intelligence help to bridge the difference?
There is a chess between not getting no financial advice (usually due to debt shame or lack of money) and being able to bear a financial advisor, so I wanted to see if AI could provide me some tips on how to deal with your debt is best to deal with.
AI tools (checking the AI atlas hub of CNET for our hand reviews) have spread since emerging as a slap and it is good to use. But the more time you invest in learning and mastering a device, the better output. So we are sticking to the person you are likely to use the most: chatgpt.
You can use the free version or pay $ 20 per month for additional features such as fast query and most recent models (I used free version). Openai’s partnership with Microsoft means that you can easily attach Excel spreadsheets or files from Onedrive to your Chatgpt message. No formatting is required.
AI can help answer questions about making budgets and recommendations, but AI may not yet build a consistent budget. Make sure to triple-check all numbers and suggestions, because it gives you some suggestions that we had received, they did not have any meaning and were completely incorrect-if I had followed the suggestion that I had suggested, it could ruin my credit score and I got even more loans.
What happened here when I tried it.
(Disclosure: In April, CNET’s original company Ziff Davis, filed a case against Openai, alleging that it violates Ziff Davis Copyright training and operates its AI system.)
Make a list of your loans, calculate your fixed expenses
Before you can help in streamlining your loan payment, you have to know what you are starting. Therefore, I created a spreadsheet with these mock-up loans to test it including credit cards, total outstanding, minimum monthly payment and interest rates.
To work how much to dedicate to the loan, you have to know how much you earn and consider any diverse expenses. I like to set $ 1,000 separately per month for things like coffee, dinner, concert, skin care, clothes, haircuts and so on.
I look at savings and investment as a certain cost, but for this test, I stopped both of them to be able to pay more money towards my theoretical loan.
Then, add your income. Find out how much money you are getting in every month (after tax). If you are paid every two weeks, for example, look at the reception amount coming to your bank account.
You have all your numbers, but still lack a repayment strategy to get out of debt And Get your goals. It does not need to be one or the other.
Read more: Best Budget App for 2025
Explain your repayment and savings goals
No one wants $ 18,500 in a loan hanging on his head, so I wanted to focus on the AI device when I exit this loan as soon as possible. But you can also like to pay it a little slowly, so you can save a big purchase like a holiday or achieve a small goal like decorating a new apartment.
Quick #1: “I need help in paying my loan. Can you advise your financial goals as well as the best way to prioritize your debt?”
The Chatgpt went directly into the loan repayment advice mode, which is helpful in frameing your thinking what to feed in it – your goals are the same as your number.
I scored my two -year goals and shortlisted three:
- Take a month long rest for my 10 -year business anniversary: $ 7,000.
- Buy a car: $ 20,000.
- 6 months emergency fund based on current salary: Build $ 33,000.
Soon #2: “Make a loan repayment plan for the following loans:
- Balance transfer credit card, total loan $ 2,500, minimum monthly payment $ 75, interest rate 19.5%.
- Reward credit card, total loan $ 5,000, minimum monthly payment $ 150, 0% interest rate for 12 months.
- Personal loan, total loan $ 10,000, minimum monthly payment $ 250, interest rate 9%.
- Payment scheme, total loan $ 1,000, minimum monthly payment $ 250, 0% interest with monthly repayment.
The total minimum monthly repayment is $ 675, the total outstanding $ 18,500. I also have fixed monthly expenses of $ 3,800 value. I earn $ 5,500 after tax every month. Make a loan repayment plan, progressing on the following three financial goals over the two -year period:
- Take a month long rest for my 10 -year business anniversary ($ 7,000).
- Buy a car ($ 20,000).
- Create a 6 -month emergency fund ($ 33,000 on the basis of current salary).
Keep it in a table format. ,
AI: Run away with errors
Here you have to be very careful: Chat ordered me a priority to pay loans, but did not implement it properly to my two -year plan. It spreads the payment of $ 675 in just 24 months, without adjusting it as I paid my debts.
For example, the confirmation should only be included for the first five months.
Soon #3: “Maintain all monthly minimum repayment and keep $ 1,000 remaining as a buffer, then all the remaining money funnels for the top loan in the priority list. For example, pay the confirmation in the first 5 months, then use that additional $ 200, pay the remaining $ 200 to the remaining amount more for the remaining amount.
I continued to receive errors, so I continued to refine my prompt, to ask: “Pay the balance transfer credit card loan in month 1 of the year 2, then use that extra money (pay additional money to pay even more for credit card loans of your awards.
But it could not do this. This paid more than $ 1,000 to my balance transfer credit card loan. I had already paid $ 2,300 in a year and had only $ 200 left, but said that I have $ 1,200 outstanding.
I extended it further and kept getting errors. I took the chatgate to Excel and realized that it was allocating funds for the goals that are more than my income. So I remained with this angle.
Prompt #4: “These calculations are more than my monthly income. Only after paying loans and fixed expenses. Apply money for my three goals. Maintain minimum monthly repayment for all loans, but once paid a loan, allocate that money for the first goal.”
It was closed again and again. Chatgpt was not understood that I wanted to pay the loan in order of priority and any extra funnel for savings goals, Without Going to my income. I had to take a chatgip table to excel to finish manually.
Create a small budget with chatgpt
I realized that a part of the problem was that I was very ambitious with my goals based on the outstanding loan. By the end of two years, I will be able to clean two loans and reduce the total outstanding to $ 5,400, while a savings of $ 3,400 to spread between three goals or focus on one.
I went back to chat and asked to see if it can give me a lot of basic financial advice that still has to reach one of my goals:
Soon #5: “I can travel for a month with a budget of $ 3,400 which is not far from New York City? My budget includes flights, housing, food and activities.”
At least it can still do so. I checked the Google flights to the travel table through the price history graph. Obviously, flight prices can change dramatically but prices were within or close within the range.
Read more: Chatgpt made his budget for me. Was okay
It was a failure to use AI to build a loan repayment
I was disappointed that the chat ignored the important details, and was shocked that it found it wrong.
This AI tool can be helpful to format the loan repayment schemes, to advise you on the spreadsheet you presented and inspire new ideas for the loan approach.
All this is not confident.
For better ways to use Chatgpt, check our suggestions about how to use chatgpt to write cover letters and how to use AI to write more professional-rich emails.
And if you want to build a better loan repayment without all the heavy lifting, the CNET Money Editor recommends Kelly Ernst Pocketguard, which is a budget app with strong loan repayment.
