I Used AI To Audit My Spending — It Flagged 4 Costly Mistakes
Submitting your monthly statements to Google Gemini so it can analyze your spending and tell you what you're doing wrong might be an exercise in prudent financial introspection, but it makes for a painful few seconds of anxiety when the artificial intelligence (AI) personal assistant flashes the “thinking” prompt while crunching the numbers.
Even so, I took the plunge.
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I chose Gemini because I had already enrolled in Alphabet’s new beta program, Personal Intelligence, which links the chatbot to all my existing apps and accounts in the company ecosystem — Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube, etc. That meant Gemini could do most of the heavy lifting without much more input from me than uploading my most recent bank, credit card and peer-to-peer payment statements.
Its analysis highlighted a few key errors that, once fixed, could save me thousands.
‘Zombie’ Subscriptions
The first leak was a recurring wound — what Gemini called “zombie” subscriptions.
Embarrassingly, it noted that I was paying $15 per month for a gym membership, but that I hadn’t received an email noting that I’d scanned in for four months.
Sorry, Gemini, I’ll get it right with my next New Year’s resolution. I promise.
Then there was a premium weather app that had been costing me $12 per month since I forgot to cancel after the free trial.
In what it called a “costly mistake,” Gemini informed me I was spending “$324 per year on ghost services that provide zero utility.”
The ‘Convenience Tax’
The next two deadly financial sins involved both gluttony and sloth: dining and delivery.
Gemini’s audit found $110 in one month “that went purely to delivery fees, service charges and ‘small order’ surcharges.” It used the moment to scold me with this judgy synopsis: “This isn't just about the food. It's about the 25% markup for the luxury of not driving five minutes to the restaurant.”
Insurance on Autopilot
It made up for insulting me earlier by paying me the compliment of presuming that my next blunder was due to loyalty rather than laziness. It found that I’d been with the same auto and home insurance provider for six years and paid a monthly premium of $210.
It warned me that “loyalty in insurance usually results in a price creep" and, after a quick market comparison, noted that a similar policy costs just $165.
Unearned Interest
Finally, it applauded me for having $15,000 in a savings account, which it presumed without asking was an emergency fund. The real emergency was that, six months after I opened the account, my high introductory yield expired and my annual percentage yield was reduced to 0.01%.
“In a world where high-yield savings accounts (HYSA) are offering 4.00%+, this money is effectively shrinking due to inflation," it said, noting that this oversight was costing me “$600+ per year in lost interest income that requires zero effort to claim."
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
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