April 16th 2026
Happy Thursday!
Welcome back to HOW TO // AI — glad you're here!
Here's what we've got for ya:
👉 Take Control of Your Finances With AI
📥 Free Download: The AI Money Kit (Notion Template)
📱 Build Any App You Can Imagine — Without Writing a Line of Code
🎨 Stop Making Boring Slides — Try This Instead
Let's get started!
👉 How to Take Control of Your Finances With AI
Most people's relationship with their finances looks like this: vague anxiety, occasional Googling, and a general sense that they should probably be doing something differently but not knowing where to start.
AI doesn't fix your finances. But it does something almost as valuable — it removes the confusion and embarrassment that stops most people from even looking at them.
You can ask AI things you'd be too embarrassed to ask a financial advisor. You can get plain English explanations of things banks and credit card companies deliberately make confusing. And you can build a clearer picture of where you actually stand — in a conversation, at your own pace, for free.
Here are five money tasks AI is genuinely great at.
💰 Task 1: Build a Real Budget (That You'll Actually Use)
Most budgeting advice is either too vague ("spend less!") or too rigid (27 spreadsheet categories). This prompt gets you something in the middle — a real plan built around your actual life.
Try this:
Help me build a simple monthly budget.
My take-home income: [$X per month]
My fixed expenses (rent, car, subscriptions, etc.):
[list them with amounts]
My variable spending (food, going out, shopping, etc.):
[rough estimates]
My current savings: [$X]
My goal: [e.g. save for a holiday / pay off debt /
build an emergency fund]
Give me:
- A realistic budget breakdown
- Where I'm likely leaking money
- One specific thing I can change this week
- A simple way to track it without a complicated app
📉 Task 2: Negotiate a Bill or Cancel a Subscription
Most people pay whatever they're charged. Most companies will reduce your rate if you simply ask — they just count on you not knowing that or not doing it.
Try this:
Help me negotiate my [bill type — phone / internet /
insurance / streaming / gym] bill.
I'm currently paying [$X/month].
I've been a customer for [X years/months].
I [have / haven't] threatened to cancel before.
Write me a script I can use on the phone or in a
live chat that:
- Opens with the right framing
- Makes a specific, confident ask
- Handles the most common pushbacks
- Has a clear exit if they won't budge
🏦 Task 3: Understand Any Financial Term in Plain English
Banks, mortgage brokers, and investment platforms use language designed to make things sound more complicated than they are. This prompt fixes that instantly.
Try this:
Explain [financial term — e.g. APR, compound interest,
index fund, debt-to-income ratio, dollar cost averaging]
to me in plain English.
Assume I'm smart but have no financial background.
Use one real-life example.
Tell me:
- What it actually means
- Why it matters for someone in my situation
- One thing I should do (or stop doing) based on
understanding this
📈 Task 4: Research a Financial Decision Before You Make It
Whether it's a big purchase, an investment, or a financial product you've been offered — AI can help you think it through before you commit.
Try this:
I'm considering [the financial decision — e.g. opening
a stocks and shares ISA / buying a used car on finance /
switching my mortgage / investing in X].
Help me think through this properly:
- What are the real pros and cons?
- What questions should I be asking that I'm probably not?
- What are the risks most people don't consider?
- What would a smart, cautious person do here?
- Is there a simpler or cheaper way to get the same outcome?
🎯 Task 5: Make a Plan for a Big Financial Goal
Whether it's buying a home, paying off debt, building an emergency fund, or saving for something specific — AI can help you build a realistic path from where you are to where you want to be.
Try this:
I want to [your financial goal — e.g. save $10,000 /
pay off my credit card / build a 3-month emergency fund].
My situation:
- Monthly take-home: [$X]
- Current savings: [$X]
- Current debt (if any): [$X at X% interest]
- Monthly expenses (roughly): [$X]
Build me a realistic plan with:
- How long it will realistically take
- Exactly how much to set aside each month
- The order I should tackle things (if there are multiple goals)
- What to do if I have a bad month and fall behind
💡 AI won't manage your money for you. But it will finally explain it in a way that makes you want to.
All five prompts — plus 15 more covering credit scores, investing basics, salary negotiation, insurance, and planning for major life moments — are in this week's free download 👇
🎁 This week's free download: The AI Money Kit
20 prompts that make AI your personal finance translator — for every money question you've been putting off.
✅ Budgeting and spending prompts
✅ Bill negotiation scripts
✅ Financial term explainers
✅ Investment research prompts
✅ Big purchase and life goal planning prompts
(Free Notion template — just duplicate and use)
🎯 Try this today: Pick the one money task you've been avoiding longest. Use the prompt above. It takes 5 minutes and you'll know more than you did before. Reply and tell me what you tried — I read every email.
📱 Build Any App You Can Imagine — Without Writing a Line of Code
Have an app idea that's been sitting in your head for years? A booking tool for your business, a habit tracker, a niche community platform, something that solves a problem no existing app quite handles?
Anything is an AI agent that turns a plain English description into a fully working app — iOS, Android, and web — with a real database, user login, payments, and hosting all built in. You describe what you want in chat, it builds it, you iterate. No developers, no code, no waiting.
Over a million people are building with it. The sweet spot is anything with standard patterns — dashboards, booking flows, subscription tools, community apps, internal business tools. A therapist built a full client portal in 23 minutes. A side hustler launched a niche mobile app in under 30 minutes and had signups the same day.
Anything Max takes it further — it's an autonomous agent mode that doesn't just build your app, it runs it like a real user, catches errors, fixes them, and re-tests automatically. For anything more complex, Max is how you ship something that actually works.
Free to start. Code is yours to export and host anywhere.
🎨 Stop Making Boring Slides — Try This Instead
If presentations are part of your life, Chronicle is worth 10 minutes. It's an AI tool that structures your story first — hook, problem, solution, proof — before generating a single slide. Clean, interactive, and professional-looking out of the box. Built by people from McKinsey, BCG, and Apple. Free to start.
Free to start. Takes about 20 minutes to build your first real deck. Watch the 101 tutorial first to save yourself the learning curve 👇
What did you think of this newsletter?
🤔 Got Questions?
Have a question you want answered? Email [email protected] and you just might be featured in an upcoming issue!
This newsletter is your starter kit for mastering AI with confidence. We keep things simple, show real examples, and focus on quick wins you can repeat.
Stay curious, stick with it, and watch your skills grow week by week!
Until next time :)
— David
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