Watching Your Wallet: Using AI to help you save money and budget

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Leveraging artificial intelligence to save money goes beyond hunting for bargains.

"Find out what stores are holding sales in your neighborhood, for example," says Stephen Perrine with AARP.

As part of AARP's 99 Ways to Save, Perrine suggests using AI to automate your budget, track current expenses and even lower your bills.

"We're all fighting all the time with insurance companies, credit card companies, banks, utilities, video streamers," Perrine said. "All the time, there's some new late fee or surcharge or what have you showing up on your bill."

You can prompt AI to help you with a customer service call to reduce costs or get your money back.

"Write in exactly the challenge that you're facing and why you think you should get those fees refunded, and let it create for you a script that you can then use when you talk to customer service," Perrine said. "Now you've got talking points that make sure that you hit everything that's salient and makes you feel like you've got a little digital coach over your shoulder."

Perrine says he and his family use AI to avoid food waste and multiple trips to the store.

"We call it like pantry clean-out day, where we just take all the groceries that are sitting in our pantry, put them out on the table, take a photo and ask AI to come up with some recipes using what we've already got," he said.

It's important to note that you don't want to share any sensitive personal information, such as Social Security numbers, when prompting AI tools.

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