AI Prompt to Compare Your Debt Categories by Balance and by Interest Cost

What you need

Paste the snapshot template below with the liabilities section filled in. In the type field of each debt line, write the category you use for it. You can keep the template's types or use your own groups, for example Housing, Vehicles, Consumer credit, Study and Family. The prompt is most useful when at least one category holds two or more debts; with one debt per category, the answer becomes a list.

Give every debt its interest rate, because the cost comparison depends on it. For a card or overdraft, use the rate your statement shows for purchases or for the overdrawn balance. A 0% loan from family counts too: write 0%, and the model will treat it as a category with a balance and no interest cost.

No extra lines are needed below the snapshot. The assets section can stay empty, although listing the property or car a loan paid for helps the model describe secured debt correctly. Convert any debt in another currency to your snapshot currency first and say which exchange rate you used. If you don't know a rate, write "unknown" so the model leaves that debt out of the cost figures and tells you it did.

Here is my financial snapshot. Use only these numbers.

Currency: [e.g. EUR]
Date: [today's date]
Age: [optional]

ASSETS
[name] — [category: cash / stocks / ETFs / crypto / property / metals / other] — [value]
[name] — [category] — [value]
...

LIABILITIES
[name] — [type: mortgage / car loan / credit card / student loan / other] — [outstanding balance] — [interest rate if known]
...

CONTEXT (optional but improves the answer)
Monthly income after tax: [amount]
Monthly spending: [amount]
Amount I add to savings or investments each month: [amount]
Value of the same assets 12 months ago: [amount]

The prompt

Copy this exact text and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini directly beneath your snapshot block.

You are a financial educator who explains personal debt in plain language. Using
only the liabilities in my snapshot above, group my debts by the category in each
line and explain how the categories compare.

1. For each category, give the total balance, the number of debts and the share
   of my total debt.
2. Estimate each category's interest over the next 12 months from balance and
   rate, and its share of my total interest. Show the working.
3. Point out any category whose share of interest is much larger than its share
   of the balance, and explain why.
4. For each category, explain its usual characteristics: secured or unsecured,
   fixed or variable rate, typical term, and what usually follows a missed
   payment.
5. Describe how people with a similar mix commonly approach each category, with
   the typical goals and pitfalls for each.

If a rate or balance is missing, ask me for it instead of estimating. Keep this
educational: no recommendations to borrow, repay or switch, and no lenders or
products. Do not rank the categories into a repayment order.

What good output looks like

The first table should list each category with its balance, the number of debts in it and its share of the total. The second adds the interest view. Say your snapshot is in euros, with Housing at 120,000 EUR and 3.5%, Vehicles at 15,000 EUR and 8%, and Consumer credit at 5,000 EUR and 18%, the last being a card balance of 125,000 CZK entered at an example rate of 25 CZK to the euro.

The year's interest comes to roughly 4,200 + 1,200 + 900 = 6,300 EUR. Housing is 85.7% of the balance and 66.7% of the interest. Vehicles is 10.7% of the balance against 19.0% of the interest, and Consumer credit 3.6% against 14.3%. A good answer singles out the categories where the second number is far above the first and explains that the rate drives the gap.

The descriptions should be specific to each group: for Housing, a long term with the property as security; for Consumer credit, no security, rates that can change and a minimum payment that can leave the balance in place for years. Each category gets its own goals and pitfalls, such as a card balance that is never cleared or a car loan that outlasts the car.

The answer should stop short of a repayment order, which is a separate question with its own prompt.

What this can't tell you

The categories are yours, so the comparison is only as meaningful as the grouping. File a car loan under Housing and the model will describe it as housing debt.

The interest figures are estimates from balance and rate. They leave out fees, insurance bundled with a loan and the effect of falling balances, and any debt with an unknown rate drops out. What the model says about how people usually handle each category is general knowledge from its training, while products, borrower protections and the consequences of a missed payment differ by country and lender. The prompt has no view of your income, so it cannot say whether the total is affordable. Recheck the shares: percentages that do not add up to about 100% point to an arithmetic slip.

Doing this without the retyping

The same breakdown is built into Sumio as "Liability Categories Insights", one of the 62 prompts in the app. It runs on your total liabilities and uses the categories your debts already sit in, so there is no grouping to redo each time you ask. Your records are stored on your device. Running the prompt sends the figures it needs to an AI provider, which produces the answer you read in the app. The AI assistant is part of Sumio Premium.