Let Claude or ChatGPT run your household budget

A household budget usually lives in one person's head, or in a spreadsheet that one person keeps up to date. In a shared Era household it lives in a place that every member's assistant can read, so you can ask Claude or ChatGPT how the month is going, your partner can ask theirs, and both of you hear the same answer.

Can an AI assistant run a household budget?

An assistant can run the everyday work of a household budget: reading the shared figures, answering questions about them, building the views you want and tracking who owes whom. You stay in charge of what is shared, because every member decides what goes into the household and nothing important changes without your say-so.

What makes this possible is the shared household. Each member connects their own assistant to Era, and the household gives all of those assistants one set of shared figures to work from.

What can the assistant do for a couple or a houseshare?

In a shared household, the assistant can answer the questions a household asks every month, using numbers that come from the accounts and categories members have shared, and it can build and change the views you look at together. Here are some of the things you can ask:

• "Who owes whom this month?" and "has Sam paid me back for the energy bill?"
• "Build us a household view" with the spending, the bills and the savings goal on one page, assembled from templates previewed on your own figures.
• "How much did we spend on groceries compared with last month?"
• "What are our biggest regular outgoings, and which ones have gone up?"
• "How is our household's financial health?", answered in figures with the analysis behind them.
• "Show me every shared document about the tenancy."

You can also ask the assistant to split a transaction or mark a debt as paid, and undo it if you change your mind. Era connects Barclays, Monzo, Starling, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Nationwide and Revolut over open banking, so the figures can come from the accounts you actually use, joint account included.

Does my partner's assistant see the same figures?

Yes, and that is the point of sharing. Your assistant and your partner's assistant read the same shared figures, so a question asked by either of you gets the same answer, and nobody has to forward screenshots to settle an argument about the total.

You can use Claude while your partner uses ChatGPT, or the other way round, and the numbers don't change.

What does the assistant not see?

Anything you haven't shared. Each member shares by account or by category, a "What I share" view lists exactly what is visible, and a "stop everything" control withdraws all of it in one step, so your private accounts stay private.

Your assistant can still help you with your private accounts in your personal data, while the household sees only what you've chosen to put in.

Roles add another layer. Owners and admins manage the household, contributors add and change things, and viewers see the figures without being able to edit them.

Which assistants work with a shared household?

Any assistant that connects to Era works with a shared household, including Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. You connect yours once, and it can work with both your own data and the households you belong to, so each member can keep the assistant they already prefer.

The step-by-step guides are connect Claude to your bank account and connect ChatGPT to your finances.

Financial advice generation is coming soon. Today the assistant reads, explains, organises and builds from your shared figures, and it doesn't yet tell you what to do with your money.

Do the assistants remember what we tell them?

They remember what the household decides to keep. A fact such as "we split rent 60/40" or "the holiday fund is for August" can be remembered for the household, and then every member's assistant knows it, while your personal facts stay in your own memory.

The full picture is in what your household's AI assistants remember.

How do I set it up?

Create a shared household in Era, invite your partner or housemates by handle or email, and choose what each of you shares. Then connect your assistant and ask your first question: "who owes whom this month?" Era connects accounts across the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and 40+ countries in all.

If you are choosing between apps first, Splitwise alternatives in the UK compares the options.