EPS 35 - Using AI to Crush Debt and Build Wealth: My ChatGPT Experiment

In this episode of Pink Money, Jerry Williams shares his surprising experience using ChatGPT as a financial planning tool. From creating a debt payoff strategy in seconds—comparing the “debt avalanche” vs. “debt snowball” methods—to suggesting investment options for as little as $60 a week, Jerry explores how AI can deliver practical, actionable financial insights.

He highlights the pros and cons, explains why ChatGPT’s speed and specificity are eye-opening, and discusses how this technology can complement (not replace) traditional advisors. Whether you’re tackling credit card balances, building an investment plan, or just curious about how AI might help with your money, this episode shows why ChatGPT is more than just a research tool—it’s a financial game-changer.

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Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

Hello and welcome to the Pink Money Show. I'm your host, Jerry Williams, and we talk about all things related to money from a gay perspective. And today I wanted to talk about probably one of the most useful tools that I have found recently is ChatGPT. Now, I know I'm not the first person to have used it or have recommended it or even adopted it for a lot of things, especially research. But I think that what I found most recently about it is just how many things it can actually do. I know that sounds so naive, but I'm not necessarily an early adopter person. I have to really kind of wait, see how things go, see how it shakes itself out, and then I use it, but it takes a while for me to sort of ramp up to it. But, you know, the more that I use it, the more fascinating I find it. And I think that when I was using it recently, I found that it can just do so So many things so quickly, and that's just astounding to me. And especially... You know, when it comes to things that you would ordinarily use a financial advisor for, like, let's say, hey, how do I get out of debt? Create me a plan. What should I do? You know, you have to spend some time with that person and then lay out all your information. It's just time. It's time consuming. That's what I'm saying. And of course, you have to be able to trust that person and all that good stuff. But you kind of just also wonder, you know, are they going to give you the most straightforward advice? And sometimes, you Of course, like I always say, everybody has to eat. So is there a part of what they're telling you that is slightly biased because they have to pay their own bills and they have to put food on their own table? And so I'm just saying, it's not like you should be completely leery about everybody and be completely suspicious. But again, everybody has their own agenda, if you will. But I was thinking about... How can you use GPT? And I know this is not the only AI out there as well, so my little caveat there, I guess. This is the only one I'm mostly familiar with. I know there's others, but this one is the one I just use as my go-to, and like I said, I'm just completely fascinated by it. So I was monkeying around with it, and I thought, well, I wonder what it would do if I gave it some criteria and asked it to create me a debt reduction strategy. How would it do it? How quickly would it do it? So I put in six different amounts that were due, like these were credit cards that are due, and these are the balances, these are the interest rates, this is the minimum payment, and this is when it's due. And so I gave it these six things and asked it to create a plan. I think it created a plan in less than a minute. It was just to me completely amazing how quickly it did it. And it used what it called a debt avalanche plan. Now, I've not heard that term before. Maybe it's pretty common, but that was the first time I've heard it. Now, I've heard of the debt snowball plan, which is when you pay off your smallest balances first. And then you kind of work yourself up that way because it helps you stay motivated. You see things can pay off quickly and, you know, it just can help you kind of keep on track. But this did the debt avalanche, which is really just the traditional plan that most people, most financial advisors would typically recommend, which is paying off the highest interest rates first and then working your way down so you save more money. But I was curious, you know, if because that was the first thing it kicked out. And by asking it some questions, I asked, what is the time difference between the debt avalanche versus the debt snowball? In this case, just based on the criteria I gave it, it said it was basically a dead heat, that there was no difference time-wise between the dead snowball and the dead avalanche. I found that kind of interesting. Of course, I didn't run these numbers myself, so I'm just going off as strictly what it said, but I'm assuming, you know, in good faith that it's giving me the most accurate information. So it said there was no time difference, so I thought, well, then... what is the difference between the two money-wise, you know, monetarily, if I use the debt avalanche versus debt snowball. And based on the amount that I put in, it said there was only a$76 difference. So it depends on how you see that.$75 is$75, 76, whatever. You know, so is that big enough difference? To choose one or the other, that's up to you, in my opinion. Because, again, depends on you, how you view your situation, and truly how you want to get out of this debt quicker rather than later. Now, the one thing I would throw in that it didn't throw in, I didn't ask it, though, either, is because... When you're looking at paying off your debt, that's one strategy, right? Because you just want to get out of debt. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is how your debt is affecting your credit score. Now, whether that's something that is an overly meaningful concern for you or not, I guess that's kind of up to you. But if let's say that a lot of your balances are over 50% or even maxed out, that's going to be damaging to your credit score. So you could take that into account as well to get it to pay down your balances, you know, quickly, the ones that are above 50% so it knows, you know, what are the credit card limits or, you know, what have you, so that you could bring those balances down below 50% if, again, that is a major concern to you. But if it's just strictly, hey, just get me out of debt as best I can, this is how much money I can afford to... Apply to my debt daily, weekly, monthly, whatever, you know, biweekly so that, you know, we can create that strategy for you. But again, like I said, you know, it probably it took me longer to input information than it took it to spit it out to me. I did it by hand. I'm assuming you could probably just speak it in. I tried to do the little microphone, but it didn't seem to work for me. I don't know. Again, I'm not the most technologically adept person. But anyway, it did do what I asked it to do. So I thought that was really fascinating, like I said. And I think that in the general sense, if you need to have... If you need to have a see fit and have it recalculated for you so I'm just saying it's a really good tool to use and I would highly recommend it especially like I said if you don't have a particular person that you're relying on this is a great way to go the other thing that I did with it that I found was kind of interesting as well is I gave it some basic criteria as well about where and how to invest meaning I told it that I had$60 a week that I could invest. What would it recommend? And I was kind of thinking it might kick it back to me saying, you know, well, there's so many things you could do, etc. And, you know, kind of punt. But because I gave it very basic criteria, I didn't go into great detail. Like, you know, this is the style of portfolio I want. These are the kind of assets I have outside of this. I didn't give it any of that. And it quickly, again, shot back to me, again, in maybe like 30 seconds, you know, six different strategies of what you can invest in and i was just floored i really really was because with that it said here are some recommended strategies based on different levels of risk tolerance and investment goals of which like i said i didn't give it to you i didn't give that information to it that said index mutual funds or etfs low to moderate risk You can invest in S&P 500 or an ETF like VOO or SPY or a total market ETF, example VTI. These funds track the overall market and have a historically shown steady growth over the long term. You could use brokerage accounts like Vanguard, Fidelity, Robinhood, or E-Trade for fractional shares. way more information than I expected, really. But it also gave me high-yield savings accounts, some low-risk, some dividend stocks, actual dividend stocks, which really, again, surprised me. And it said, dividend-paying stocks provide the opportunity for capital appreciation, regular income, and they're great for those who prefer consistent returns and reinvestment potential. And it kicked out Coca-Cola, Johnson& Johnson, AT&T. And I, you know, those are blue chick companies. Great. You know, but for the fact that he even gave a specific recommendation is just astounding to me. Now, of course, this is just a machine, you know, and there's I don't think you could go and sue anybody. You know, maybe you can. I don't know. But I doubt it. But, you know, a lot of investment advisors. financial advisors, counselors, whatever you want to call the person you're working with, will be very hesitant to tell you a particular stock to give because they don't want that recommendation to come back and bite them. So that kind of leaves you as a person scratching your head going, well, what can I invest in? You know, you don't really want to tell me or you're gearing me toward a mutual fund. Is that mutual fund really going to help me, hurt me? You know, how much are you getting paid for that recommendation? So You know, and again, these strategies were just ones that it just shot out in a heartbeat. But it also said to use, you know, for low to moderate risk, a robo-advisor like Betterment or Wealthfront. And because I asked it, you know, wonder if you can't meet the investment minimums or how much are the investment minimums? Because that's always something that you want to be concerned with as well, right? Because if you, in my case scenario where I gave it$60 minimums, period to invest on a weekly basis, I didn't tell it, I have this much money I can invest to meet the minimum. So it didn't know that, but it gave me these different funds through Fidelity, Vanguard, American, T. Rowe Price, and gave me the expense ratios as well. And it ranked them, like it gave me the Vanguard Wellington Fund with an expense ratio of 0.24, the Fidelity Balance Fund with expense ratio of 0.52, the American Funds Balance Fund 0.58, and the T. Rowe Price said expense ratio 0.68. And, you know, that's just extremely helpful in my opinion because you can just see right there in a glance how this would be helpful to you. And then it did also kick out the investment minimums, like the Vanguard Wellington has a$3,000 minimum investment. Fidelity has a zero investment, says Fidelity does not have minimums for many of their mutual funds if you open account directly through them. American has a$250 to$1,000 to your price, minimum$2,500. Now, I didn't say whether these are IRAs or regular accounts. My guess is, for the most part, they're talking about regular accounts. But if you wanted to open up an IRA, oftentimes Oftentimes, the minimum is lower, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's 100% true. But anyway, I thought all these strategies, like I said, were really, really useful and completely... thorough you know to the most part based on the criteria that I gave it so you could be a lot more detailed than I was and see what you get you know and hopefully you find it helpful Like always, you know, seek some competent tax and legal and investment advice if you feel like you need it. But like I said, all things considered, I think it was very, very useful. And I recommend that, you know, you give it a try. So that's pretty much it for me. And if you don't know how to get ChatGPT, I guess you can just Google it and then you can download it because that's pretty much how you do it. It's pretty straightforward. So other than that, you have a great day and I will talk to you next time.