Guides › Money
See where your money went last month
Paste a month of bank transactions and get a clear spending breakdown by category, with your three biggest leaks pointed out.
When to use it
At the start of each month
Step by step
Download last month's transactions
In your banking app or website, look for an option to export or download transactions as a CSV or PDF. A screenshot of the list works too.
Strip out private details
Delete or cover account numbers, sort codes, card numbers and your address before you share anything. Merchant names and amounts are all the AI needs.
Ask for a breakdown
Open ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, attach the file or paste the list, and use this prompt.
Prompt to copyHere are my bank transactions for [month]. Group every outgoing payment into categories such as Housing, Bills, Groceries, Eating out, Transport, Shopping, Subscriptions, Kids, Health and Other. Give me a table with each category, its total and its share of total spending. Then list my 10 largest single payments, flag any payments that look like repeat subscriptions, and point out the three areas where I could most easily spend less. Don't give investment or financial advice, just describe my spending.Check the categories
Skim the table and tell the AI about anything it put in the wrong place, for example a supermarket shop that was really a birthday present.
Keep a running record
Copy the category totals into a simple sheet with one column per month so you can see trends over time.
What you get
October total: £2,184. Housing £950 (43%), Groceries £412 (19%), Eating out £186 (9%), Transport £143 (7%), Subscriptions £67 (3%)... Easy wins: 11 coffee shop visits (£42), two food delivery apps, a gym membership with no visits since August.
Tips
- Never paste full statements with account numbers, and remember the AI can misread amounts, so check the totals against your bank app.
- Ask it to compare with last month's table if you paste both.