You would be forgiven for feeling underwhelmed after listening to the chancellor deliver the spring statement last week. While Rachel Reeves spent considerable time emphasising a brighter economic outlook, there was little in the way of immediate relief for working households.<\/p>\n
Wages may have risen, but so too have taxes, childcare costs, housing and everyday bills. Frozen tax thresholds mean more people are drifting into higher tax bands, even when their real income has barely changed.<\/p>\n
Many professionals and working families are feeling stuck. They are earning decent salaries on paper, yet still living from pay cheque to pay cheque, widening the gap between what they will need in retirement and what they have saved.<\/p>\n
These are the households that fall into an uncomfortable middle ground. Too wealthy to qualify for meaningful financial support, but not wealthy enough to feel financially secure.<\/p>\n
This is the middle-class squeeze.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, saving meaningful sums can start to feel impossible. The milestone of building your first \u00a310,000 in savings begins to look increasingly out of reach.<\/p>\n
Yet this first \u00a310,000 is often cited as the hardest financial milestone to achieve while also being one of the most transformative. Once savings reach five figures, progress tends to accelerate. Investment returns start to really deliver, compounding starts to play a larger role and the financial habits required to build wealth are already in place.<\/p>\n
The problem is that building the discipline and awareness needed to reach that point can feel overwhelming. Which is why I recently began experimenting with an unlikely ally in the process: artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
The experiment was simple.<\/p>\n
I downloaded three months of bank statements from all our household accounts, including credit cards. After removing sensitive information I uploaded the transactions to ChatGPT and asked it to act as a financial coach with one specific goal.<\/p>\n
I wanted to save \u00a310,000 within a year. That works out at roughly \u00a3833 a month. I asked the tool to analyse our spending and identify exactly where that money could come from.<\/p>\n
What surprised me most was how practical the response was.<\/p>\n