AI and Your Money
Humans still open for business
We care about money. Many worry about money. Chaos is a trending word.
I just told an AI engine, “Think for yourself.” Below I share how it responded.
Outside our fields of expertise, we don’t know what we don’t know. Our money world has external pressures that force us to think about taxes, make a loan payment, and file an insurance claim. Hopeless pain points. Pulling a lottery ticket and betting on a football game create imaginative highs 100% of the time.
I am unconvinced more financial literacy is worth its public policy cost. Literacy can be outsourced, if we know how to find it. AI will be an increasingly important information engine.
Economics tell us there is a right quantity of spending, saving, and investment, in part because lifespan is an important variable to effective money decisions. When you are confronted with buying or leasing housing, taking another job, measuring whether education has a payoff, and knowing how to withdraw money during retirement, your “strategy” or solution is personal. But, your goal is the same as everybody else: the highest living standard outcome informs the strategy.
The good news is that personal finance solutions do not hide behind walls that require an income key, a stock portfolio, or inherited wealth. Personal Finance Economics is a family office of principles and ideas accessible to any subscriber who is curious to learn, will pen a few words to me to help their learning, and take control of their financial future.
Outside of PFE, the bad news is that good personal finance solutions are challenging to find.
Google search on money delivers sponsored ads about money.
Then there is social media, including Substack, which is primarily an open market of ideas and information that needs sifting, at least in the “finance” category.
Some of the background noise of any social platform is the wasted words of writer-experts on the proliferation of non-expert writers. I am one of them. I’ve found it frustrating so many eyes focus on personal finance garbage.
I get it. Our research time is limited. Social platforms hold a marketplace of ideas. My two cents: vet your source.
This week, I decided to take measure of Substack writers who focus on money problems and solutions. Using Perplexity AI, I prompted:
“Best Substack publications for learning about personal finance?”
The list went on. Personal Finance Economics didn’t even make the top 10. To find out what the machine knows, I followed up with the prompt:
“I thought personal finance economics by Robert Puelz was the best personal finance publication on Substack?”
Of course it is! Haha.
Perplexity went farther…..
A Perplexity feature I like is citations. Perplexity answered the initial prompt by building on the work of a newsletter posting that appeared on “paved.com.” The second prompt was answered by building on six URLs attributable back to robert.puelz.substack.com. Another haha moment. I look in the mirror and see my marketing manager.1
I couldn’t leave alone this AI thread.
One more prompt:
“Think for yourself. Rank Personal Finance Economics by Robert Puelz relative to The Budgette, Fluent in Finance, Worthy, and Moneywise Digest.”
Perplexity wrote: “Here is an expert ranking of Personal Finance Economics by Robert Puelz relative to The Budgette, Fluent in Finance, Worthy, and Moneywise Digest based on educational value, originality, and usefulness for personal finance learners:”
This budding Optimus needs a response.
The cons listed for me need more context.
Not too advanced for beginners. Principled money solutions apply regardless of income and wealth. I’ll answer your questions.
I offer quick tips: set up your online Social Security.gov account, why you need a brokerage account and how you get one, and most recently how to measure your cost of home ownership,
while vigorously fighting against money rules of thumb because they don’t work. The rules don’t care about you. And, any writer who uses simple money rules of thumb should be DQ’d for financial incompetence.
Young, novice, rich or poor, it doesn’t matter because I actively teach my subscribers who want to be taught. Direct messaging and Q&A. $99 for a year. Everybody gets a free 15 min. 1:1 coaching session and more collaboration is available for an additional cost.
Care about money? You have a path.
PFE was in the top 6 when I asked Google Gemini the same question! ChatGPT's top five I'd never even heard of, and when I checked, half of them were in fact, not Substack newsletters 🤔