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Find the money leaking out of your bank account

Money vanishes and you can't say where. Paste a few months of your statement and get the leaks, the price creep and a ranked list of what to cut.

Updated 17 Oct 2026

The prompt · ChatGPT

Go through my bank statement with me and find where money is leaking out.

Months covered: [e.g. July to September]
Whose spending this is: [e.g. just me / me and my partner / the whole household]
Take-home pay each month: [amount, or leave blank]
Things I'd never cut: [e.g. the kids' swimming, the gym I actually use]
Anything I already suspect: [e.g. too many takeaways, Amazon orders]

My transactions (date, payee, amount; I've removed account numbers and sort codes):
[paste the rows from your banking app or a downloaded statement]

Ask me up to 3 short questions first if anything important is missing. Wait for my answers. Prefer questions about payee names you can't recognise or anything that looks odd.

Then:
1. List every regular payment (subscriptions, direct debits, standing orders, memberships), how often it goes out, and what it costs per year.
2. Flag any regular payment that went up during these months, and anything that looks like a duplicate, a forgotten free trial, or two services doing the same job.
3. Group the rest of my spending into simple categories with a monthly total for each, and point out the small, frequent spends that add up the most.
4. Give me the 5 changes worth the most per year, biggest first. Mark each one cancel, downgrade, haggle or keep, with the first step to take.
5. For the top "haggle" item, write a short script I can use when I ring them.

Only use the figures I've pasted and show your sums. If you can't tell what a payee is, list it as unknown rather than guessing. This is help organising my own numbers and wording, not financial advice; point me to MoneyHelper, GOV.UK or Citizens Advice for guidance, and to a free regulated debt adviser if I'm struggling to pay. Only use what I've told you, leave blanks for anything I haven't given, and don't invent facts or figures. UK English.

If I've uploaded a file, analyse it directly for the regular payments table and show your working.

Stay in this ChatGPT chat. Do not turn on apps or connectors, and do not use memory from another chat.

A short example

Fill the blanks, then paste. e.g. July to September: a short note you already have. e.g. just me / me and my partner / the whole household: a short note you already have. Leave the rest of the prompt as written.

This does not give tax advice. The books stay in the accounting system.

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