{"id":259633,"date":"2025-07-12T18:39:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T18:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/259633\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T18:39:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T18:39:22","slug":"i-used-notebooklm-to-track-my-finances-and-its-actually-kind-of-brilliant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/259633\/","title":{"rendered":"I used NotebookLM to track my finances, and it\u2019s actually kind of brilliant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google’s AI-powered research assistant has quickly changed the way I view AI. It’s single-handedly convinced me that AI can actually be a game-changer for productivity<\/a>, and isn\u2019t just fancy technology coming for everyone\u2019s job or trying to snatch away creativity. Given how much NotebookLM has impacted my workflow<\/a>, I\u2019ve been on the hunt for more ways to integrate it into my day-to-day life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not looking to massively change the way I do things. I\u2019m simply trying to make life a tad bit easier by leveraging NotebookLM\u2019s strengths. In a world where people download the top-rated budgeting and finance tracker apps<\/a> with colorful charts and spending limits I\u2019d probably ignore, I decided to take a bit of a unique approach. I turned to NotebookLM to see if it could help me make sense of my spending habits (and potentially control my retail therapy addiction). And honestly? It did a surprisingly good job.<\/p>\n

NotebookLM makes breaking down bank statements simple <\/p>\n

Bank statements, but make them make sense<\/p>\n

\"NotebookLM<\/p>\n

It could just be me, but I’ve always found bank statements a bit complicated to navigate. I keep having to scroll up and down to figure out whether it\u2019s a debit or credit, or remind myself what half the transaction descriptions even mean. But of course, at the end of the day, I can’t just let my bank statements go without psychoanalyzing where all my money went.<\/p>\n

Did I spend my entire paycheck ordering yet another parcel from Amazon? Or did I spend it on food? Did I spend more money than I made that month? Instead of sitting down with a calculator, I’ve been turning to NotebookLM to make sense of my bank statements for the last few months. All I do is create a new notebook and add the bank statement I\u2019d like to analyze as a source. Within seconds, NotebookLM generates a short summary of the document, including key details like the opening balance, closing balance, examples of transfers, and more.<\/p>\n

What I find game-changing, though, is the option to ask the AI any questions I have about the bank statement in completely natural language. I can ask something like, \u201cWhat\u2019s the biggest expense this month?\u201d and it\u2019ll pull up all the relevant information from my bank statement. For instance, in this example, it let me know the transaction date, the recipient, transaction type, and even compared it to my total withdrawals for the month to help me realize how significant that one expense was in the grand scheme of my spending.<\/p>\n

NotebookLM\u2019s most unique feature is that it\u2019s grounded within its sources, so it only references information from the documents you add to your notebooks. This means I don\u2019t need to worry about it making stuff up or pulling in unrelated data from the web. Everything it tells me is based solely on my actual bank statements.<\/p>\n

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Related<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tI don’t ‘Watch’ YouTube videos anymore, I consume them using NotebookLM
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NotebookLM just changed the way I YouTube.<\/p>\n

The Mind Maps feature is a game-changer when it comes to finances<\/p>\n

Visualizing your money like never before<\/p>\n

The ability to ask questions about complex financial statements in natural language is incredible, and I rely on it heavily. But there are times when I don\u2019t have many questions and just want a summary of my entire bank statement. At the same time, reading a lengthy text summary wouldn\u2019t be any simpler than manually going through the statement itself. Here’s where NotebookLM\u2019s Mind Maps feature<\/a> comes in. It organizes all the information from my document into a visually appealing and interactive diagram.<\/p>\n

For instance, when I uploaded June\u2019s bank statement into a notebook, the Mind Map produced four nodes: Account Holder Information<\/strong>, Statement Details<\/strong>, Balance Summary<\/strong>, and Transactions<\/strong> (June 2025). As you can probably tell, all the essential parts of the statement are neatly organized and easy to navigate.<\/p>\n

Clicking on the Transactions<\/strong> node, for example, revealed sub-nodes for each date I made a purchase. Clicking on a specific date\u2019s sub-node then reveals the individual transactions for that day, complete with details like the merchant name, amount spent, and transaction type. It\u2019s a simple, visual way to get a clear snapshot without getting overwhelmed by rows of numbers.<\/p>\n

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Related<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t5 NotebookLM tips I use to supercharge my productivity
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Enjoy efficient knowledge management<\/p>\n

Adding past tax returns and statements for a clearer view of my finances<\/p>\n

Seeing the bigger picture with multiple documents<\/p>\n

\"unique<\/p>\n

What\u2019s so great about NotebookLM is that you aren\u2019t limited to adding just a single source. You can add a bunch of different sources of varying lengths and types, and NotebookLM seamlessly connects the dots between them.<\/p>\n

Instead of only using the AI tool to interact with my monthly bank statements, I also created a much bigger notebook with more in-depth information like my yearly bank records, credit card and debit card statements, my own Excel sheets which I\u2019ve used to track expenses, and even my previous tax returns. With all the documents in one place, I can ask NotebookLM all the complex questions I might have, even if they aren’t necessarily tied to a specific document.<\/p>\n

I find the Mind Maps feature especially helpful in this case, since it works best when you have either multiple documents or a relatively long source, in my experience. I can ask NotebookLM to analyze everything together to give me a clearer, more comprehensive view of my spending and financial situation. Not only does NotebookLM reference only your uploaded materials when answering queries, but it also displays citations showing where it picked up the information. This makes it extremely simple to verify the information myself.<\/p>\n

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\"welcome<\/p>\n

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Related<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t4 productivity tricks I\u2019ve learned after using NotebookLM since launch day
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These simple yet powerful NotebookLM tricks have transformed my workflow.<\/p>\n

Let NotebookLM do all the number crunching for you<\/p>\n

Frankly, these kinds of tasks are exactly what I hope AI can handle for me. Instead of jumping through countless spreadsheets and PDFs to piece together my finances, NotebookLM becomes my one-stop shop for understanding where my money goes and what steps I need to take next. No wonder it’s such a great tool for small businesses and startups<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google’s AI-powered research assistant has quickly changed the way I view AI. It’s single-handedly convinced me that AI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-259633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114841725659142265","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}