Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Hey fam Today, on the bright side, your financial planning
Speaker 2: just got an upgrade. Okay, Sis, we're talking AI and
Speaker 2: the groundbreaking new ways you can utilize technology for financial planning,
Speaker 2: get yourself out of debt, plan for that dream vacation,
Speaker 2: and learn the surprising ways that we can lean on
Speaker 2: AI for budgeting. It's Wednesday, January twenty ninth. I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright side from
Speaker 3: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Okay, Danielle. It feels like AI is one of those
Speaker 2: things that we just cannot escape right now. It's ever present,
Speaker 2: It's in our Google searches, it's popping up in Instagram features.
Speaker 2: And today we're talking about how we can use AI
Speaker 2: for financial planning, which I think is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Simone, I'm so obsessed.
Speaker 3: I can't stop thinking about what AI is going to
Speaker 3: change in our world, and we're already experiencing some of it.
Speaker 3: As you said, in terms of financial planning, people are
Speaker 3: really utilizing this as a tool. According to a study
Speaker 3: by Experience, nearly half of consumers said that they have
Speaker 3: or are considering using AI for financial management help, and
Speaker 3: ninety six percent of people who used it said they
Speaker 3: had a positive experience.
Speaker 1: I'm into this. Is this something you would ever use?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely. I think the future for AI and financial
Speaker 2: planning is very bright. Like I do see a future
Speaker 2: in which AI replaces brokers, which obviously that is there
Speaker 2: is an unfortunate downside to that. We're losing you know,
Speaker 2: human labor. But I don't know. Is AI going to
Speaker 2: become smarter than the market one day? I mean, imagine
Speaker 2: how that's going to upend the power dynamic in this world?
Speaker 3: And can you trust it? I feel like we're going
Speaker 3: to get into all that today, but I'm open.
Speaker 2: I feel the same way about AI as they do
Speaker 2: about space, like I'm scared of it, but I'm open.
Speaker 3: I think that's such a great sentiment because when I
Speaker 3: think back in history about all of the times that
Speaker 3: have been these like monumental shifts in technology, the first
Speaker 3: reaction is to fear it. Like everybody felt that way
Speaker 3: about TV, about radio, about microwaves, And here we are
Speaker 3: utilizing all that stuff smartphones even right.
Speaker 1: AI is just the next frontier.
Speaker 2: Right and we've all seen the research on how early
Speaker 2: adopters wind up becoming much more successful. You know, the
Speaker 2: people who remain open and are willing to learn the
Speaker 2: new technology. There are just numerous benefits, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: We have to remain open. Well, we're going to get
Speaker 3: into so much of this today. Joining us to break
Speaker 3: it all down is Melissa Jean Baptiste. She's the founder
Speaker 3: of the financial literacy blog Millennial in Debt and the
Speaker 3: author of the personal Finance book So this is why
Speaker 3: I'm Broke.
Speaker 1: I love that title.
Speaker 3: She teaches millennials and gen z how to increase their income,
Speaker 3: how to build generational wealth, how to gain financial and
Speaker 3: what I really appreciate is that she's talking about this
Speaker 3: from a personal place.
Speaker 1: She has experience in this.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean I was fascinated to learn that
Speaker 2: a few years ago Melissa paid off one hundred and
Speaker 2: two thousand dollars in student loan debt and purchased her
Speaker 2: first home within thirty days of that milestone. She was
Speaker 2: actually a teacher at the time and started selling her
Speaker 2: lesson plans on the side as a side hustle, and
Speaker 2: then that extra income facilitated all of her other financial goals.
Speaker 2: Like that story is just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 3: Well, without further ado, we're excited to welcome the self
Speaker 3: proclaimed Beyonce of personal finance, Melissa Jean Baptiste. She's here
Speaker 3: to help us with our bills. Bills, bills, Melissa, welcome
Speaker 3: to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Dane. That was a fantastic intro.
Speaker 5: I love, I love the little nods of Beyonce Disney's child.
Speaker 1: We had to we couldn't resist.
Speaker 2: We have to start by asking you about your journey
Speaker 2: because you heard it out like so many Americans in
Speaker 2: debt from student loans. But we mentioned that you actually
Speaker 2: paid off over one hundred thousand dollars in student loans
Speaker 2: and bought a house all on a teacher's salary, which
Speaker 2: is just mind blowing. How did you make that happen?
Speaker 3: Don't tell me coupons, Melissa, No, I can't handle that.
Speaker 2: And don't tell me you skipped on seven dollars lattes. No.
Speaker 5: I did skip out on a lot of things, but
Speaker 5: it wasn't that that helped me reach the end goal,
Speaker 5: which I think is a lot of the miscommunication and
Speaker 5: the finance. We're all like, yeah, just don't buy coffee
Speaker 5: and you could buy a million dollar house.
Speaker 4: That's that's not true.
Speaker 5: So it took a lot of discipline and also a
Speaker 5: lot of really sitting down with myself.
Speaker 4: And what even led.
Speaker 5: Me to start this during and paying down my debt
Speaker 5: is I tried to buy a house.
Speaker 4: I live in New York.
Speaker 5: I tried to buy a house at twenty five years old.
Speaker 5: I had no savings account. I didn't know anything about
Speaker 5: anything regarding money. And the real estate agent was just like,
Speaker 5: maybe you need to call your loan provider because there's
Speaker 5: nothing we could do for you here, Like, you're just
Speaker 5: not going to get approved for a mortgage that's big
Speaker 5: enough to buy anything besides like a Barbie house in
Speaker 5: New York. And so when I called my loan provider,
Speaker 5: they were just like, oh, you owe eighty thousand, and
Speaker 5: that was strange because.
Speaker 4: I had only board fifty.
Speaker 5: And that's when they really started explaining, you're on an
Speaker 5: interest only payment plan. You you know, even paying these payments,
Speaker 5: but it hasn't been going to the principle. And I'm
Speaker 5: just like, I don't I don't know any of these
Speaker 5: terms mean. I just you sent me a bill. I
Speaker 5: paid the bill, Like what are we talking about? And
Speaker 5: so that moment, that conversation is really what made me
Speaker 5: sit down and look at my numbers calculate my net worth,
Speaker 5: which was in the negatives. And in that moment, I
Speaker 5: looked at all of my spending. I looked at my budget,
Speaker 5: which was terrible. I looked at my debt, I looked
Speaker 5: at my income, and I came up with a plan
Speaker 5: where I would essentially side hustle and figure out how
Speaker 5: much I needed to make every single year to pay
Speaker 5: down this principle, pay down this amount that my monthly
Speaker 5: payment was just not doing. And so I ended up
Speaker 5: selling my lesson plans in unit plans and making an
Speaker 5: additional ten thousand dollars a year that I would put
Speaker 5: towards my student loans.
Speaker 2: I'm really curious about, like how you sold the lesson plans.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So initially I started off, like I said, doing
Speaker 5: any side hustle that would make me a little bit
Speaker 5: of extra money. I was walking dogs, I was tutoring,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, listen, I'm already spending forty fifty hours
Speaker 5: making lesson plans and unit plans. And I started doing
Speaker 5: some research. And there's this platform called Teachers Pay Teachers,
Speaker 5: where it's literally built for educators to sell really great
Speaker 5: things that they've created and you can purchase from other
Speaker 5: educators who've actually taught and used these materials themselves.
Speaker 4: So that's how I ended up there.
Speaker 3: Melissa, what were some of the mistakes that you were
Speaker 3: making before you were getting your finances on track?
Speaker 5: So I really was a mind that if I pay
Speaker 5: all my bills, or if I can pay all my bills,
Speaker 5: that I know how to operate money.
Speaker 4: So I wasn't.
Speaker 5: Saving, I wasn't budgeting, I wasn't planning, and I would
Speaker 5: literally be like, Okay, I have this money, I'm going
Speaker 5: to spend it.
Speaker 4: I'm getting another paycheck.
Speaker 5: In two weeks, without ever really thinking like, hey, maybe
Speaker 5: you can invest this money, or maybe you could put
Speaker 5: it towards saving. You want to travel, but you don't
Speaker 5: want to take on more debt. Maybe create a sinking
Speaker 5: fund for you to travel in the next six months
Speaker 5: or the next year. I was literally getting a paycheck
Speaker 5: and spending it on anything and everything, just because like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: I paid my bills. And it wasn't until besides that
Speaker 5: that conversation with the real estate agent. I overdrafted my
Speaker 5: account for a pair of coach speakers.
Speaker 4: And I was just like, oh, girl, you.
Speaker 5: Maybe you need a plan if you're going to be
Speaker 5: I're embarrassing yourself like this.
Speaker 4: So I was just a big spender, very big consumer.
Speaker 1: It's not embarrassing.
Speaker 3: It's really like if you don't grow up learning this stuff,
Speaker 3: it's really hard to find digestible information later on.
Speaker 1: It that's confusing.
Speaker 3: I had not a similar experience to you, but a
Speaker 3: different experience where I realized, like I got to get
Speaker 3: my shit together.
Speaker 1: We all have that moment, Yes, I think.
Speaker 2: So I know that you also use chat GPT to
Speaker 2: facilitate your side hustles. How do you do that?
Speaker 4: So you can do one of two ways.
Speaker 5: One you could do the quiz route, where you can
Speaker 5: say chat GBT create a side hustle quiz that will
Speaker 5: help me figure out what my skill sets are or
Speaker 5: what I might be interested in. But if you already
Speaker 5: know the skills that you're really good at, like for myself,
Speaker 5: I was an educator, so I might type in give
Speaker 5: me side hustles that are really great for people in education,
Speaker 5: and then you know, it gives me a list.
Speaker 4: Or I can say, give me side hustles that I
Speaker 4: can do.
Speaker 5: Remote remotely for experience with education, and it'll give me
Speaker 5: different options. So whatever your skill set is that is
Speaker 5: where you want to lean into for side hustling, because
Speaker 5: a lot of times online you'll hear just like.
Speaker 4: You could do Uber eats and all of that is like, well,
Speaker 4: maybe I don't want to.
Speaker 5: Go outside, right, so maybe I want some side hustles
Speaker 5: I could do inside. But I don't know they even exist,
Speaker 5: Like a lot of people don't even know that they
Speaker 5: can sell their lesson plans and unit plans and adding
Speaker 5: that into AI and really getting specific into what you do, well, that.
Speaker 4: Is going to give you options that you might not
Speaker 4: have even known about.
Speaker 2: We've got to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back to our conversation with Melissa Jean Baptiste, So
Speaker 2: stay with us and we're back. So I'm skeptical, Melissa,
Speaker 2: I gotta be honest because because I have not been
Speaker 2: privy to AI platforms that I would feel comfortable in
Speaker 2: trusting with my financial situation or even with my investing decisions.
Speaker 2: But I know that we're there already and these resources
Speaker 2: are only going to become more available to us in
Speaker 2: the near future. So what are some of the ways
Speaker 2: that you would suggest use AI to get a better
Speaker 2: handle on our finances?
Speaker 5: Yes, I completely understand I was there, But I think
Speaker 5: at no matter whichever you know space you are with AI,
Speaker 5: whether you really trust it and you love it and
Speaker 5: you want to figure out how to navigate, or you're
Speaker 5: just trying to like maybe dip your toe in and see,
Speaker 5: like I don't know yet. There are tools in so
Speaker 5: many different ways for you to kind of figure out
Speaker 5: a financial plan on whatever goal it is that you're
Speaker 5: trying to achieve. So, for example, if we're using CHADGBT,
Speaker 5: which is the one that we all know. If we're
Speaker 5: using CHADGBT, you can use it to ask questions about
Speaker 5: things that you might not understand. So you can use
Speaker 5: it strictly as for definitions, right, I can ask and
Speaker 5: say like, oh, I really want to understand these five
Speaker 5: investing terms. Can you break this down like if you
Speaker 5: were talking to a tenth grader, break this down if
Speaker 5: you were talking to a twenty five year old, And
Speaker 5: if there are things that the output comes out you're like,
Speaker 5: I still don't understand.
Speaker 4: You could absolutely use it as a learning tool.
Speaker 2: So I'll give you a hypothetical like, yeah, top of
Speaker 2: this here, one of my goals is to god a
Speaker 2: really comprehensive budget together so that my husband and I
Speaker 2: can just get a handle on our spending. Where would
Speaker 2: you recommend I go to create a budget? Is there
Speaker 2: an AI option out there for me?
Speaker 5: There are a couple of different tools, so come. Filent
Speaker 5: money and monarch money are really great as like little
Speaker 5: assistant tools. You do typically have to connect your accounts
Speaker 5: and if you're like not, you know, comfortable connecting the accounts,
Speaker 5: you can input and estimate. The only thing is with like,
Speaker 5: we estimate a lot when it comes to finances, so
Speaker 5: you want to try to get as close as possible
Speaker 5: to your accurate numbers and then create that like, hey,
Speaker 5: you know I bring in five thousand dollars a month,
Speaker 5: I want to save five hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: These are my expenses, these are my goals. What do
Speaker 4: I need to do?
Speaker 5: And it'll create this plan and create this budget for you.
Speaker 5: And then as you're navigating the month, so as you're spending,
Speaker 5: as you're doing all that, it'll tell you like, hey,
Speaker 5: you're eighty percent to your grocery budget. You might not
Speaker 5: want to spend another two hundred dollars at target. You
Speaker 5: might want to reel it in this week. If we
Speaker 5: want to stay on target. So that's what I really
Speaker 5: like is that it gives you the plan and it
Speaker 5: also gives you the reminders like, oh, you're you're.
Speaker 4: Not following the plan, so let's let's change it up here.
Speaker 2: And then when it comes to investing, are you looking
Speaker 2: to AI for suggestions as to how to invest so.
Speaker 4: That you want to be really careful.
Speaker 5: I do love using AI to learn more about investing,
Speaker 5: and you can use AI to learn about historical performances,
Speaker 5: but I wouldn't necessarily not at this juncture, just because
Speaker 5: the stock market can change so quickly and so many
Speaker 5: things that's really hard to suggest like, yeah, you should
Speaker 5: do this because it'll definitely happen.
Speaker 4: We don't know them. Even AI doesn't know that.
Speaker 5: But if you want to look at historical performances or
Speaker 5: understand like how the stock market works as a whole,
Speaker 5: I would absolutely suggest using AI just to get that knowledge,
Speaker 5: but also double checking. I always saying like, Okay, I
Speaker 5: got this information on Chad GBT, let me go to
Speaker 5: Google and see some other Let me look at you know,
Speaker 5: Yahoo finance, or let me look at business insider to
Speaker 5: make sure that that information is accurate before I go
Speaker 5: and dive in and start doing things. I always want
Speaker 5: to double check, especially when it comes to money.
Speaker 3: Do you see AI as a replacement for a financial
Speaker 3: advisor or do you see it more as a support tool?
Speaker 4: Definitely not.
Speaker 5: So to become a financial advisor is extremely difficult. And
Speaker 5: I respect financial advisors and tax advisors because they have
Speaker 5: to go through so much training and they have to
Speaker 5: know exactly what they should say and what they shouldn't
Speaker 5: say because they take a percentage they do, and that's
Speaker 5: you also have to find a really good one. But
Speaker 5: you know, want to make sure that you are doing
Speaker 5: a thing that's best for your future self. So I
Speaker 5: still would always suggest, yes, use AI, and yes you
Speaker 5: can look at the outputs, but I would still go
Speaker 5: bring into a financial advisor and see, like, you know,
Speaker 5: are these suggestions really the best thing that twenty years
Speaker 5: in the future is going to be worth it for
Speaker 5: me in my retirement.
Speaker 1: Is there a way to fact check AI?
Speaker 3: Because like I've been using chat GPT a ton, but
Speaker 3: I saw this study actually that they took forty entrepreneurs
Speaker 3: out of Kenya and they were all using AI for
Speaker 3: a month. The people that knew how to use AI
Speaker 3: well increased their revenue by forty percent. The people who
Speaker 3: didn't know how to decipher what was good information versus
Speaker 3: what was bad and they just kind of went with
Speaker 3: it went down twenty percent, Like you really, and I
Speaker 3: don't know if we have enough self awareness nowadays to
Speaker 3: know if we're deciphering well or not right.
Speaker 5: That's that is a really As a former teacher, I'm like,
Speaker 5: it's so important to understand fucked opinion and just pure fiction.
Speaker 5: So I do think you need to fact check and
Speaker 5: that could be as simple as doing a quick Google
Speaker 5: search minus AI so you can see like the human information.
Speaker 5: But I'm also really good on reading books, looking for people,
Speaker 5: financial advisors, looking for other financial influencers online, just to
Speaker 5: ask the question and see is it coming up with
Speaker 5: similar answers.
Speaker 4: I know AI is.
Speaker 5: Definitely like you know, I want it quick. I want
Speaker 5: to quick, so yeah, I'm getting this quick output, but
Speaker 5: I also want to make sure I'm not going to
Speaker 5: lose like million dollars in the future. So I highly
Speaker 5: suggest asking the questions and looking up in multiple spaces
Speaker 5: to see what results you're getting and see if they're
Speaker 5: actually accurate.
Speaker 1: Are there any red flags? Like is there information you
Speaker 1: should not be sharing with AI.
Speaker 5: I would just say, if you feel that you are
Speaker 5: not comfortable, and that's just with everything online, not comfortable
Speaker 5: connecting your accounts, use it more for research, Like I
Speaker 5: wanted to tell me, you know a compound interest calculator.
Speaker 4: I am huge with that on AI.
Speaker 5: Because I'm like, math is math, right, so you're you
Speaker 5: can't really go too far off with math. So there
Speaker 5: are a lot of times where I'll say, Okay, if
Speaker 5: I invest one hundred dollars for the next ten years,
Speaker 5: how much fold does equate to if compounded by seven percent,
Speaker 5: if compounded by eight percent, and so it will give
Speaker 5: me that output, and I'll be able to say, Okay,
Speaker 5: maybe I'll invest two fifty three fifty, but I'm not
Speaker 5: necessarily like connecting.
Speaker 4: My four to one K to chat GBT.
Speaker 5: So if you don't want to connect your accounts, just
Speaker 5: using it for research or math purposes is the safest
Speaker 5: way and the most like, the most impactful way to
Speaker 5: help you really navigate your findance.
Speaker 3: We have to take another short break. We'll be right
Speaker 3: back with Melissa Jean Baptiste. And we're back with Melissa
Speaker 3: Jean Baptiste. Okay, I want to get practical for a minute,
Speaker 3: Can I ask you some nuts and bolts things? Yeah,
Speaker 3: can you use AI to boost your credit score? Are
Speaker 3: there any tools for that?
Speaker 5: So there are not any ways where you can go
Speaker 5: to an AI tool and it will fix your credit Like,
Speaker 5: that's just not going to happen. Our credit has five
Speaker 5: things that it's you know that are going into it.
Speaker 5: And the two major aspects of sixty five percent of
Speaker 5: what makes up your credit score is on time payments
Speaker 5: and your credit utilization. So how much of your credit
Speaker 5: limit are you using and how often are you paying
Speaker 5: on time? And those are just two things that AI
Speaker 5: cannot do. You can set up a reminder and a
Speaker 5: like on an AI tool to say, hey, pay your
Speaker 5: bill on time, but there's nothing that an AI tool
Speaker 5: can do that will boost your credit score like that.
Speaker 3: So just just don't do not say, somebody has ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars of credit card debt. Is there a way
Speaker 3: to utilize AI to get a plan in place to
Speaker 3: pay it all off?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and that is one of the best ways and
Speaker 5: best tools to do so. So putting in all your
Speaker 5: information because a lot of times we're like, yeah, I
Speaker 5: have ten thousand dollars in debt.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, what's your interest rate? And we don't know.
Speaker 4: They're like, well, what's your your monthly payment? We don't know,
Speaker 4: what's your payoff date? We don't know.
Speaker 5: So when you use an AI tool like chat GBT,
Speaker 5: you implement all those pieces of information.
Speaker 4: You're not putting your account number or.
Speaker 5: Anything, but you can say I have ten thousand dollars
Speaker 5: in credit card debt with a seven percent seven percent
Speaker 5: of dream, with.
Speaker 4: A seventeen percent interest.
Speaker 5: Rate, and a minimum monthly payment of.
Speaker 4: Forty five dollars?
Speaker 5: How long will it take for me to pay off
Speaker 5: with this plan? And then it'll tell you like, okay,
Speaker 5: if you pay the forty five dollars, you're gonna pay
Speaker 5: it off in like twenty years. And then you can
Speaker 5: ask it to say okay, and what if I want
Speaker 5: to pay this off in the next three years, what
Speaker 5: month payments do I need to make? And it will
Speaker 5: tell you you need to increase your payments by this amount,
Speaker 5: and then you can start working with your budget like okay, well,
Speaker 5: if I need to make an extra four hundred dollars
Speaker 5: to pay off this credit card, what are some side
Speaker 5: hustles that I could do to help supplement my income.
Speaker 5: So there you just do all these follow up questions
Speaker 5: to help you set up this plan for your budget
Speaker 5: to pay off this debt in a timely manner.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like you can like list out all
Speaker 3: the questions that you would really ask a financial planner
Speaker 3: or a friend, like just things you're curious about.
Speaker 5: Yes, as long as they're like historical research or BATH related.
Speaker 5: So again, I wouldn't say, like, hey, what what is
Speaker 5: the stock market going to do in ten years, because
Speaker 5: a lot of people will ask that because it's kind
Speaker 5: of cool to see what the AI output might be
Speaker 5: or what they think, but we simply don't know. And
Speaker 5: to make an investment decision based off of chat GBT
Speaker 5: telling me like this stock is going to go up
Speaker 5: in ten years, that's scary. I'm a very risk adverse investor,
Speaker 5: so I don't like to take huge risks because I
Speaker 5: want to retire early, so I don't want to do
Speaker 5: a lot of speculation. I like to use the historical
Speaker 5: performance as like an indicator, but I don't really typically
Speaker 5: say like I'm going to invest twenty thousand dollars in
Speaker 5: this new company and hope and hope it goes, well.
Speaker 3: Wait, so do you use AI to customize risk tolerance
Speaker 3: or market trends for your investments?
Speaker 1: Personally, you can do that.
Speaker 5: I already know, like since I started with my four
Speaker 5: one K way younger, I already knew.
Speaker 4: That I was very risk adverse.
Speaker 5: I just don't like to take risks with money in general,
Speaker 5: And that's okay, Like everyone's risk tolerance is very different,
Speaker 5: but you can have it.
Speaker 4: You can create a risk profile quiz for yourself.
Speaker 5: And answer the questions because it'll ask you, like, you know,
Speaker 5: how likely are you to invest in a new company,
Speaker 5: and it'll give you like a scale, and then by
Speaker 5: the time you finish.
Speaker 4: Answering and input your answers, it'll tell you it'll help
Speaker 4: you gauge almost.
Speaker 5: Kind of like a robo advisor, like, oh, you have
Speaker 5: a very low risk tolerance, maybe this is how you
Speaker 5: want to set up your portfolio, or you have a
Speaker 5: it's very high risk tolerance, baby, this is how you
Speaker 5: want to set up your portfolio. And I would still
Speaker 5: go to an advisor and say, like, these are the suggestions,
Speaker 5: this is my risk profile, how do we think this
Speaker 5: could play out? And then just really like lean in
Speaker 5: that way same thing for side hustles. If you're like
Speaker 5: I have no idea what side hustle i'd be good
Speaker 5: at or what to do, you can have them create
Speaker 5: a side hustle based off like your skill set, based
Speaker 5: off things you're interested in.
Speaker 4: It'll create a.
Speaker 5: Quiz, you'll answer it and figure out what you might
Speaker 5: want to try to start building a new stream of income.
Speaker 2: So, in terms of saving, Melissa, what's an example of
Speaker 2: an AI prompt that will help us save more this year? Oh?
Speaker 5: I love that I create saving prompts for myself all
Speaker 5: the time. Like one of the most recent ones I did,
Speaker 5: which is so funny. I was just like, how can
Speaker 5: I prepare, Like how can I save for the next
Speaker 5: Beyonce a like surprise drop or the next tour? And
Speaker 5: what it did, which was so cool, was it looked
Speaker 5: at the average prices of like the Renaissance tour and
Speaker 5: told me, you know, if you have twelve weeks and
Speaker 5: you want to save two thousand dollars, this is how
Speaker 5: much you need to save weekly, daily or monthly. If
Speaker 5: you want to save for a specific thing that you know,
Speaker 5: like a date or a timeline, and you have a
Speaker 5: specific number, you can want to chat, GBT or any
Speaker 5: AI tool that you like to use, and ask it
Speaker 5: to create a savings plan for you with the total
Speaker 5: amount you need to save and the amount of time
Speaker 5: that you need to save it by. And if you
Speaker 5: want it to get really specific, you can start inserting
Speaker 5: your budget numbers. Right, so you can say, I bring
Speaker 5: home five thousand dollars a month, these are my expenses,
Speaker 5: and I want to save three thousand dollars in the
Speaker 5: next seven months. What is a savings plan that I
Speaker 5: could follow and it will spit that out for you,
Speaker 5: and now I can automate that savings using whatever bank
Speaker 5: that I use.
Speaker 2: Amazing. That's a great tip. And you can also use
Speaker 2: it to help you plan a vacation that's budget friendly, right, Like,
Speaker 2: give me an example of a prompt that you would
Speaker 2: use for that task.
Speaker 5: Two years ago, my girlfriends and I were going to Miami.
Speaker 5: We were saying in this specific area, saying at this
Speaker 5: specific hotel, and we input it all of that where
Speaker 5: we were staying, and we said, give us five to
Speaker 5: seven activities that we can do within the fifty.
Speaker 4: To one hundred dollars range.
Speaker 5: And you get to Yeah, even if it's not for
Speaker 5: vacation if you want to go on a date with
Speaker 5: your partner, but you tell them like the location and
Speaker 5: the price limit, and it'll give you spit out ideas
Speaker 5: of things you can do.
Speaker 4: That are in that near area or wherever you might
Speaker 4: be going to.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 5: That's because sometimes I'm like, I don't know what I
Speaker 5: want to do, just telp me where should I go?
Speaker 2: Also great for group trips that can get so unwieldy
Speaker 2: in terms of splitting costs, so correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can do it for restaurants too, which is
Speaker 5: another one because if we're like, you're gonna split for dinner,
Speaker 5: I need to know if we're going to like the
Speaker 5: Yelp restaurants with the.
Speaker 4: Four four dollars signs or a two dollars sign, Like,
Speaker 4: let's get a list going for me.
Speaker 5: I just see where we could potentially go to.
Speaker 3: Totally Melissa, thanks so much for joining us on the
Speaker 3: bright side, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Melissa Jean Baptiste is the founder of the financial literacy
Speaker 2: blog Millennial in Debt and the author of the personal
Speaker 2: finance book So This is Why I'm Broke.
Speaker 3: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we have another edition
Speaker 3: of shelf Life in store. Kate Fagan joins us to
Speaker 3: talk about her debut fiction novel and the January pick
Speaker 3: for Reese's Book Club, The Three Lives of Kate.
Speaker 2: K Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and
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Speaker 2: See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.