As of 13 August 2026, AI can check whether your savings are beating UK inflation.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 15 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your savings account statement or banking app and record the starting balance, ending balance, interest paid, account rate changes, deposits, withdrawals, and the dates covered.
   2. Find the official UK inflation figure for the same period and record the measure, period, rate, and source alongside your savings figures.
   3. Paste the figures into the prompt, replacing every bracketed slot and writing "none" or "not known" where appropriate.
   4. Ask the model to calculate the return after allowing for deposits and withdrawals, then compare it with the supplied inflation rate for the matching period.
   5. Check the model's starting and ending figures, rate periods, deposit and withdrawal adjustments, and arithmetic against your statement and a calculator.
   6. Check that the inflation measure and period match the question you mean to answer, then treat the result as an information check rather than a recommendation to move your money.

   Prompt

   Check whether my savings have beaten UK inflation over the period below. Use only the figures I provide and do not invent missing values.
   
   Savings details:
   - Account or account type: [for example, easy-access savings]
   - Starting balance and date: [amount and date]
   - Ending balance and date: [amount and date]
   - Interest paid during the period, if shown separately: [amount]
   - Deposits during the period: [dates and amounts, or none]
   - Withdrawals during the period: [dates and amounts, or none]
   - Gross interest rate or rates: [rate and dates each rate applied]
   - Tax paid on interest, if relevant: [amount or not known]
   
   UK inflation details:
   - Inflation measure: [for example, CPI]
   - Official inflation rate and source: [rate, month or period, and source]
   
   First, check that the savings period and inflation period match. Adjust for deposits and withdrawals rather than treating every balance change as interest. Calculate the savings return, the inflation-adjusted result, and whether the savings beat inflation. State clearly whether the result is before or after tax. Show each calculation in plain English, list any missing information, and do not recommend a financial product or claim that an unverified rate or inflation figure is current.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.