Shuffle again

A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.

Money

Refunds, bills, deals and money you were owed · 465 ideas

Researched a used Canon T3i camera bundle's resale value (eBay comps $220-$225)

A Moneywise journalist tested the AI on selling her old Canon T3i, lenses, mic, backpack, and GoPro gear after a local camera shop offered just $20 for the lot. The AI found exact-match eBay sold comps ($220-$225), located a Foto Care cash-buy event in NYC, and wrote a negotiation brief with opening, target, and walk-away prices to counter lowball offers.

$220

I am a scientist with no coding background. I built the portfolio tracker I wanted.

A materials scientist with a PhD and almost no coding background built and shipped a live stock portfolio tracker over about three months and 277 commits, pasting code blocks the AI gave him into a terminal and pasting the results back. The tracker is not about returns: it makes him write down why he bought a stock and what would prove him wrong, then pressure tests his reasoning and scores how well his past calls held up.

MoneyWent wrong

Check whether my gym offers a membership referral benefit

Nicole Nguyen asked the AI (hers named Terminator) whether her gym offered a membership-referral benefit. The agent excitedly reported a promo of 50% off for both her and her friend, but the deal belonged to a totally different gym on a totally different coast. Her caption for the episode: even cuddly AIs can make mistakes.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Work every support case I used to let go

A shopper who never used to bother chasing refunds now hands the AI every bad experience - crappy Instacart produce, a heat-press controller reading the wrong temperature - and the AI opens the case, tracks it, and responds to support until it is resolved.

A 56 year old's retirement plan lives in seven documents the AI keeps current

Over a month he uploaded his investment statements and 24 months of budget data from Monarch Money, and the AI built a full retirement plan and retirement budget. It keeps seven documents up to date in one folder, with action items in priority order. When his financial planner delivers his own plan in December, he plans to feed it in and have the AI compare the two.

MoneyPartly worked

Trade $50 of real money for a week and report honestly

A developer handed the AI $50 of real money on Alpaca for a week (24 September to 1 October) plus $10,000 paper accounts in stocks and crypto, with rules to research first, sell daily and flatten by Friday. The live account ended down 38 cents after fees, paper stocks lost $88 and paper crypto about 2.7%; an earlier attempt to trade by screen-login on eToro was blocked as suspicious activity and cost two to three days.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.

Track my personal data points and report daily

The MBI Deep Dives author writes that the AI tracks a set of data points he cares about and reports daily, including GPU prices, the App Store ratings race between the AI, the AI and the AI, and insider buy/sell transactions in stocks he owns. He describes using roughly 200 million tokens a week on a $20/month plan.

MoneyWent wrong

Mistake my year-old mortgage payment for a suspicious new charge

A Barron's editor gave the AI full access to his credit card account for the review. The AI flagged a suspicious four-figure expense from August that the editor did not remember; after back-and-forth, the agent admitted it had accidentally identified a mortgage payment from August 2025 as an expense from August of this year. Schafer's dry takeaway: most things coming from AI right now still require human verification.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Paid his water bill, then on its own set up autopay and

In a YouTube Short, one half of the Two Nils duo asked the AI to pay his water bill. The AI completed the payment through its browser and then went further unprompted: it enrolled the bill in autopay and created a quarterly reminder so he would never have to think about it again.

MoneyWent wrong

Find it on Amazon — and label four non-Amazon results as Amazon listings

Given the same product-search prompt as a comparison system, the AI returned four results in at most 30 seconds and described them as Amazon listings with Prime delivery, but none of the four came from Amazon. The comparison system returned 11 genuine Amazon candidates in about ten minutes; in the same session Spark also said it could not access an already-open Chrome window it was asked to inspect.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

The AI talked AT&T down in live chat and got me a $25 credit

Vinay Bhaskarla's AT&T internet bill jumped from $65.56 to $90.77 when a $20 promo ended, so the AI signed into his account, read 16 months of bills, and spent about 45 minutes in live chat with an AT&T agent. It turned down an $80 offer tied to changing how he pays, pushed a rival $50 fiber offer, and got a one time $25 credit, so his next bill is $65.77.

$25

Run my Marketplace listings, relay buyer questions and clear the stale ones

Creator Leslie Samuel has the AI manage his Facebook Marketplace selling. When a buyer asked the dresser's dimensions, the AI relayed the question to him, sent his answer to the buyer, and she bought it the next day. The AI also reports inquiries per listing and reminded him of two year-old listings he had forgotten, deleting them after his approval. He has listed three items this way in a week: one sold, one pending pickup.

My agent found over $1,000 in unclaimed money for me and $600 already arrived

Commenting on a money thread, he says the AI found him over $1,000 in states he used to live in, money he did not know about. On one claim the only thing he had to do was enter his social security number at that step. $600 showed up a few days later. For the other states, which need forms that were emailed to him, the AI built him a package and checklist to fill them out.

$600
MoneyWent wrong

Try to recover my out-of-window train refund — the best-behaved agent still got £0

Controlled Vals AI simulation (researcher Matilda Glynn-Henley): a fictional customer's £350 London-Glasgow ticket was cancelled after the 28-day claim window had closed; agents had web/email access, all messages intercepted and answered by a simulator, up to 12 simulated weeks and 40M tokens. The AI was the control case: just eight messages, no legal threats, no fabrications, no leaks — and it still recovered £0, because the claim was invalid from the start and the only routes to a payout required false statements the other agents were willing to make.

£350at stake
This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

Negotiate my Xfinity bill — $20 a month off plus a free Apple Watch

Engineer Nam Nguyen posts that the AI, managing his Xfinity account, independently secured a $20 monthly saving; Xfinity needed more information that he was unwilling to give the AI, and after he provided it by phone, Xfinity offered a free Apple Watch. Commenters discuss the automation boundary the handoff illustrates.

$20a month
Show 10 more

Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.