This AI prompt finds the hidden costs of moving before you sign anything. You tell it where you live, what you pay now & what the new place costs. It looks up local fees, counts what you’d save by switching & works out how long the move takes to pay for itself.

The prompt that finds the hidden costs of moving

The new place has an extra room and costs $50 less. You ran the numbers twice on your phone.

Both times you left out first and last, the deposit, the truck, and the fee the internet company charges just to show up.

Those wipe out a year of the savings.

Swap in a job offer, a phone plan, or switching insurance. Anything where the price you see leaves things out.

I'm deciding whether to switch or stay put, and I want the costs I'm not thinking about.

Where I am: [city, or zip code]
Staying: [what you pay now, what you get]
Switching: [what you'd pay, what you'd get]

Search the web for current costs in my area before you answer. Local fees are the point, don't estimate them from memory.

1. Find the one-time costs of switching that people forget, for my location. Deposits, utility activation, internet or cable install, building or HOA fees, agent and broker fees.

2. Ask what I'm avoiding by switching. Some costs disappear, like an agent fee I don't have to pay, and those count against the total.

3. List the ongoing costs that change, including ones that never show up on a bill. If my commute changes, ask for the distance and look up current fuel prices near me to price it. If I'm moving somewhere smaller, ask what won't fit and price storage.

4. Ask how long I plan to stay. If I don't know, use 2 years.

Then give me:
- The real first-year cost of each, one-time costs and savings included
- Break-even: how long the monthly difference takes to cover the one-time costs
- What I gain or give up that isn't money, and what that's worth against the number

Use my numbers where I gave them, searched numbers where you found them, and label anything you estimated. Show your math.

What each line is doing

  • The named list in step 1. Naming deposits, activation, install, HOA and agent fees stops it returning “consider moving expenses” and makes it go find each one.
  • The storage line. For anyone moving somewhere smaller. You save $200 a month, then rent a unit for $150 to hold what doesn’t fit.
  • “Label anything you estimated.” Your real rent and a guessed HOA fee look the same in a table. This separates what you know from what it filled in.

Why it works: It asks where you live, then looks up real fees instead of guessing at them. It also counts what you save. Not paying an agent can be worth a month’s rent, and a side-by-side of the 2 rents never shows that.

One gap: A fee it finds online might be for the wrong city.

Simple fix: Ask it to name the city and the source for each number it looked up.

The same naming trick works for anything local, not just money. Point it at library calendars and county fairgrounds pages instead of fee schedules and you get things to do this weekend near you.

When the move is part of a bigger plan

If the move is tied to a money goal, the savings plan prompt works out what to set aside each month. If a landlord or an agent says it’s a great deal, the second opinion prompt checks what they gain if you say yes.

This prompt first ran in issue 10.