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.

💬 Have a question or comment? Contact Jerry here

Episode Transcript

UNKNOWN (00:00):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
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 gayperspective.
And today I wanted to talk aboutprobably one of the most useful
tools that I have found recentlyis ChatGPT.
Now, I know I'm not the firstperson to have used it or have

(01:13):
recommended it or even adoptedit for a lot of things,
especially research.
But I think that what I foundmost recently about it is just
how many things it can actuallydo.
I know that sounds so naive, butI'm not necessarily an early
adopter person.
I have to really kind of wait,see how things go, see how it

(01:35):
shakes itself out, and then Iuse it, but it takes a while for
me to sort of ramp up to it.
But, you know, the more that Iuse it, the more fascinating I
find it.
And I think that when I wasusing it recently, I found that
it can just do so So many thingsso quickly, and that's just
astounding to me.
And especially...

(01:57):
You know, when it comes tothings 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 sometime 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 beable to trust that person and

(02:18):
all that good stuff.
But you kind of just alsowonder, you know, are they going
to give you the moststraightforward advice?
And sometimes, you Of course,like I always say, everybody has
to eat.
So is there a part of whatthey're telling you that is
slightly biased because theyhave to pay their own bills and

(02:38):
they have to put food on theirown table?
And so I'm just saying, it's notlike you should be completely
leery about everybody and becompletely suspicious.
But again, everybody has theirown agenda, if you will.
But I was thinking about...
How can you use GPT?
And I know this is not the onlyAI out there as well, so my

(03:02):
little caveat there, I guess.
This is the only one I'm mostlyfamiliar with.
I know there's others, but thisone is the one I just use as my
go-to, and like I said, I'm justcompletely fascinated by it.
So I was monkeying around withit, and I thought, well, I
wonder what it would do if Igave it some criteria and asked
it to create me a debt reductionstrategy.

(03:23):
How would it do it?
How quickly would it do it?
So I put in six differentamounts that were due, like
these were credit cards that aredue, 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 sixthings and asked it to create a

(03:45):
plan.
I think it created a plan inless than a minute.
It was just to me completelyamazing how quickly it did it.
And it used what it called adebt avalanche plan.
Now, I've not heard that termbefore.
Maybe it's pretty common, butthat was the first time I've
heard it.
Now, I've heard of the debtsnowball plan, which is when you

(04:08):
pay off your smallest balancesfirst.
And then you kind of workyourself up that way because it
helps you stay motivated.
You see things can pay offquickly and, you know, it just
can help you kind of keep ontrack.
But this did the debt avalanche,which is really just the
traditional plan that mostpeople, most financial advisors
would typically recommend, whichis paying off the highest

(04:31):
interest rates first and thenworking your way down so you
save more money.
But I was curious, you know, ifbecause that was the first thing
it kicked out.
And by asking it some questions,I asked, what is the time
difference between the debtavalanche versus the debt
snowball?
In this case, just based on thecriteria I gave it, it said it

(04:55):
was basically a dead heat, thatthere was no difference
time-wise between the deadsnowball and the dead avalanche.
I found that kind ofinteresting.
Of course, I didn't run thesenumbers myself, so I'm just
going off as strictly what itsaid, but I'm assuming, you
know, in good faith that it'sgiving me the most accurate
information.
So it said there was no timedifference, so I thought, well,

(05:18):
then...
what is the difference betweenthe two money-wise, you know,
monetarily, if I use the debtavalanche versus debt snowball.
And based on the amount that Iput in, it said there was only a
$76 difference.
So it depends on how you seethat.
$75 is$75, 76, whatever.

(05:42):
You know, so is that big enoughdifference?
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 ofthis debt quicker rather than
later.
Now, the one thing I would throwin that it didn't throw in, I
didn't ask it, though, either,is because...

(06:05):
When you're looking at payingoff your debt, that's one
strategy, right?
Because you just want to get outof debt.
Now, the other thing to keep inmind is how your debt is
affecting your credit score.
Now, whether that's somethingthat is an overly meaningful
concern for you or not, I guessthat's kind of up to you.
But if let's say that a lot ofyour balances are over 50% or

(06:27):
even maxed out, that's going tobe damaging to your credit
score.
So you could take that intoaccount as well to get it to pay
down your balances, you know,quickly, the ones that are above
50% so it knows, you know, whatare the credit card limits or,
you know, what have you, so thatyou could bring those balances

(06:49):
down below 50% if, again, thatis 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 Ican afford to...
Apply to my debt daily, weekly,monthly, whatever, you know,
biweekly so that, you know, wecan create that strategy for

(07:10):
you.
But again, like I said, youknow, it probably it took me
longer to input information thanit took it to spit it out to me.
I did it by hand.
I'm assuming you could probablyjust speak it in.
I tried to do the littlemicrophone, but it didn't seem
to work for me.
I don't know.
Again, I'm not the mosttechnologically adept person.

(07:31):
But anyway, it did do what Iasked it to do.
So I thought that was reallyfascinating, like I said.
And I think that in the generalsense, if you need to have...
If you need to have a see fitand have it recalculated for you

(08:18):
so I'm just saying it's a reallygood tool to use and I would
highly recommend it especiallylike I said if you don't have a
particular person that you'rerelying on this is a great way
to go the other thing that I didwith it that I found was kind of
interesting as well is I gave itsome basic criteria as well
about where and how to investmeaning I told it that I had$60

(08:43):
a week that I could invest.
What would it recommend?
And I was kind of thinking itmight kick it back to me saying,
you know, well, there's so manythings you could do, etc.
And, you know, kind of punt.
But because I gave it very basiccriteria, I didn't go into great
detail.
Like, you know, this is thestyle of portfolio I want.

(09:05):
These are the kind of assets Ihave outside of this.
I didn't give it any of that.
And it quickly, again, shot backto me, again, in maybe like 30
seconds, you know, six differentstrategies of what you can
invest in and i was just flooredi really really was because with
that it said here are somerecommended strategies based on

(09:28):
different levels of risktolerance and investment goals
of which like i said i didn'tgive it to you i didn't give
that information to it that saidindex mutual funds or etfs low
to moderate risk You can investin S&P 500 or an ETF like VOO or
SPY or a total market ETF,example VTI.

(09:49):
These funds track the overallmarket and have a historically
shown steady growth over thelong term.
You could use brokerage accountslike Vanguard, Fidelity,
Robinhood, or E-Trade forfractional shares.
way more information than Iexpected, really.
But it also gave me high-yieldsavings accounts, some low-risk,
some dividend stocks, actualdividend stocks, which really,

(10:11):
again, surprised me.
And it said, dividend-payingstocks provide the opportunity
for capital appreciation,regular income, and they're
great for those who preferconsistent returns and
reinvestment potential.
And it kicked out Coca-Cola,Johnson& Johnson, AT&T.
And I, you know, those are bluechick companies.
Great.
You know, but for the fact thathe even gave a specific

(10:33):
recommendation is justastounding to me.
Now, of course, this is just amachine, you know, and there's I
don't think you could go and sueanybody.
You know, maybe you can.
I don't know.
But I doubt it.
But, you know, a lot ofinvestment advisors.
financial advisors, counselors,whatever you want to call the
person you're working with, willbe very hesitant to tell you a

(10:54):
particular stock to give becausethey don't want that
recommendation to come back andbite them.
So that kind of leaves you as aperson scratching your head
going, well, what can I investin?
You know, you don't really wantto tell me or you're gearing me
toward a mutual fund.
Is that mutual fund really goingto help me, hurt me?
You know, how much are yougetting paid for that
recommendation?

(11:16):
So You know, and again, thesestrategies were just ones that
it just shot out in a heartbeat.
But it also said to use, youknow, for low to moderate risk,
a robo-advisor like Bettermentor Wealthfront.
And because I asked it, youknow, wonder if you can't meet
the investment minimums or howmuch are the investment

(11:36):
minimums?
Because that's always somethingthat you want to be concerned
with as well, right?
Because if you, in my casescenario where I gave it$60
minimums, period to invest on aweekly basis, I didn't tell it,
I have this much money I caninvest to meet the minimum.
So it didn't know that, but itgave me these different funds

(11:58):
through Fidelity, Vanguard,American, T.
Rowe Price, and gave me theexpense ratios as well.
And it ranked them, like it gaveme the Vanguard Wellington Fund
with an expense ratio of 0.24,the Fidelity Balance Fund with
expense ratio of 0.52, theAmerican Funds Balance Fund

(12:20):
0.58, and the T.
Rowe Price said expense ratio0.68.
And, you know, that's justextremely helpful in my opinion
because you can just see rightthere in a glance how this would
be helpful to you.
And then it did also kick outthe investment minimums, like
the Vanguard Wellington has a$3,000 minimum investment.

(12:44):
Fidelity has a zero investment,says Fidelity does not have
minimums for many of theirmutual funds if you open account
directly through them.
American has a$250 to$1,000 toyour price, minimum$2,500.
Now, I didn't say whether theseare IRAs or regular accounts.
My guess is, for the most part,they're talking about regular
accounts.
But if you wanted to open up anIRA, oftentimes Oftentimes, the

(13:07):
minimum is lower, but thatdoesn't necessarily mean that's
100% true.
But anyway, I thought all thesestrategies, like I said, were
really, really useful andcompletely...
thorough you know to the mostpart based on the criteria that
I gave it so you could be a lotmore detailed than I was and see

(13:32):
what you get you know andhopefully you find it helpful
Like always, you know, seek somecompetent tax and legal and
investment advice if you feellike you need it.
But like I said, all thingsconsidered, 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 getChatGPT, I guess you can just

(13:53):
Google it and then you candownload it because that's
pretty much how you do it.
It's pretty straightforward.
So other than that, you have agreat day and I will talk to you
next time.