US Woman Jennifer Allan Pays Off $12,000 in Debt with Daily ChatGPT Guidance

DELAWARE, USA – July 1, 2025 – In a remarkable demonstration of leveraging artificial intelligence for personal finance, Jennifer Allan, a 35-year-old realtor and content creator from Delaware, has successfully paid off over $12,000 of her $23,000 credit card debt in just 30 days, attributing her success to daily guidance from ChatGPT.

Allan shared her journey on social media, revealing a long-standing struggle with financial literacy despite earning a decent income. “Not because I don’t make enough, but because I was never taught financial literacy,” she told Newsweek. Her financial situation worsened significantly after the birth of her daughter, with mounting childcare and postpartum recovery expenses leading her to rely heavily on credit cards. “We weren’t living lavishly. We were just surviving. But the debt piled up while I wasn’t looking,” she explained.

Inspired by online 30-day challenges, Allan decided to turn to ChatGPT for a structured approach to tackle her debt. Her daily routine involved asking the AI tool for one actionable step to save or earn money.

How ChatGPT Guided Her Debt Repayment:

ChatGPT provided a variety of simple yet effective suggestions, including:

• Identifying Unnecessary Expenses: The AI prompted her to comb through subscriptions and financial apps, leading her to cancel unused services.
• Brainstorming Side Hustles: Suggestions included selling unused items on platforms like Facebook Marketplace.
• Uncovering Hidden Funds: In a significant win, ChatGPT’s guidance led Allan to discover over $10,000 in unclaimed money, including funds in a dormant brokerage account.
• Budgeting and Meal Planning: One key task involved creating a pantry-only meal plan, which drastically cut her monthly grocery bill by nearly ₹50,000 (approximately $600).
• Daily Tracking and Accountability: The consistent, daily interaction with the AI and the act of tracking her finances helped her confront her debt head-on.

By the end of her 30-day challenge, Allan had paid off an impressive $12,078.93, effectively halving her total debt. “It wasn’t some big financial hack,” Allan emphasized. “It was the act of facing it every day, of tracking it, talking about it, looking at it. I stopped being afraid of my numbers. I built a debt tracker.”

Allan also found empowerment in sharing her journey publicly on TikTok. “For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel ashamed. I felt empowered, like I could conquer anything.” She is now planning a second 30-day challenge with ChatGPT to eliminate the remaining balance.

Allan’s story comes at a time when personal debt is a growing concern in the United States, with household debt reaching $18.2 trillion in the first quarter of 2025. Her advice to others struggling with similar challenges is clear: “Don’t wait until you feel ready or ‘smart enough’ to start. You don’t have to know all the answers—you just have to stop pretending it’s not happening.” She suggests finding a way to “make it fun,” noting that for her, “using AI gave me a sense of structure without judgment, and TikTok allowed me to hold myself accountable because [the] community I had built was showing up every day waiting for the next task.”