Something about me is that I get absolutely crazy, unhinged ideas. And once one crosses my mind, I can’t really rest until I’ve seen it through. Given that it’s currently end-of-year recap season, one thing that’s been constantly on my mind is this: why doesn’t a finance wrapped exist? While I recently found out that some “modern fintech apps” do offer some sort of recap, none of the banks where I live do. So, instead of letting one of my better unhinged ideas go to waste, I thought… why not try making one myself?

Now, the best part about end-of-year recaps is that you don’t really know what kind of ride you’re in for. The results can sometimes end up being very, very unexpected. So I didn’t want to create one manually — because where’s the fun in already knowing what the outcome will be? Fortunately, I knew exactly which tool to turn to: NotebookLM. I’ve used it to track my finances before, and with Google recently adding a slide deck feature to the tool, I knew it’d be the perfect way to bring my year-end financial recap to life.

Putting it together took about five minutes

A few click it takes

If you haven’t had the chance to explore NotebookLM's Slide Decks feature yet, it lets you generate full-fledged presentations directly from sources you upload to your notebook. While you can’t edit the generated presentation just yet, you can tailor the output to your requirements by using a detailed prompt when generating the deck.

Before you can generate a Slide Deck, you need to populate your notebook with sources. Given that my goal was to create an end-of-year financial recap, I needed to start by pulling together my financial data. The best way to get a full picture of my year financially was by uploading my bank statements.

Instead of dumping an entire year’s worth of data in at once, I found my monthly statements and uploaded them individually. Then came the fun part: adding a detailed prompt that clearly outlined exactly what I wanted. Here's the exact prompt I decided to add under Describe the slide deck you want to create:

You are a Gen Z financial analyst creating a "Spotify Wrapped" style recap. Your tone is chaotic, affectionate, and high-energy. Do not use corporate language. Use slang (e.g., "It’s giving," "Rent Free," "Ick").

The Task: Analyze the uploaded documents to create the content for a 10-Slide Presentation. For each slide, you must cite the specific Month or Merchant from the data.

The Slides:

Title Slide: "My 2025 Financial Era"

Subtitle: "Receipts, Proof, Timeline, Screenshots."

The "Top Artist" (Merchant):

Who lived "Rent Free" in my bank account? (Identify the merchant with the highest frequency of transactions).

The "Top Genre" (Category):

What was my "Roman Empire"? (The category I spent the most money on—exclude rent).

The "Brat Summer" Moment:

Find the month with the highest unnecessary spending spike. Label this "My Chaos Era."

The "Very Demure" Moment:

Find the month I spent the least. Label this "Very Demure, Very Mindful."

Girl Math / Boy Math:

Find a large expense that technically "doesn't count" (e.g., coffee, books, tech, health). Justify why it was actually free.

The "Ick":

Identify a recurring subscription or fee that is annoying and needs to go.

The "Insomnia Cart":

Identify "weird" online purchases (Amazon, Shein, Food Delivery) that look like impulse buys.

The Aura:

If my spending was a color, what is my "Financial Aura"? (e.g., "Anxious Red," "Trust Fund Beige," "Chaotic Neon").

Final Rating:

Rate my year on a scale of "It’s Giving Bankruptcy" to "CEO Mindset."

Since I'm not subscribed to NotebookLM's $200 Ultra tier, I don't have the option to generate longer Slide Decks. So, I went with the Default option, which ended up generating 10 slides. I then hit the Generate button, and patiently waited for NotebookLM to crunch the numbers and piece everything together.

The results were even better than I expected

I didn't have high expectations

Given that the Slide Decks feature is still new, I haven't played around with it a whole lot. I certainly haven't used it for a wild use case such as this, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. But the results were… simply incredible. Don't believe me? See for yourself:

The recap NotebookLM generated followed a neon theme, presumably because I mentioned "Chaotic Neon" in my prompt. The recap included everything I specified, starting with who lived rent-free in my bank account. It even included a count of recurring expenses and when they peaked. The next slide was my “Roman empire,” which ended up being cash withdrawals. It mentioned that my main spending category ended up being vibes, which frankly felt entirely accurate.

Then, the next slides focused on the months I spent the most and the least. What I loved was that NotebookLM even made a graph to visualize the trends, making it instantly clear when my spending spiked and when I had a financial breather.

The "Girl Math" section ended up highlighting a transaction I had made at an electronics store, which meant it was something I bought for work… which meant more productivity and more money. So, fully justified, of course. NotebookLM explained this perfectly with neat visualizations! Honestly, each slide was better than the last, and I think this might just be one of the best ways to see what NotebookLM's Slide Decks feature is capable of.

All the slides included a footer at the bottom noting the source of the data, making it easy to trace each insight back to the original transaction or statement.

You don’t need NotebookLM’s premium plan to try this

While Google did roll back the Slide Decks feature for users on NotebookLM's free tier a couple of days ago, it’s fortunately back. Though limits do apply, free users can still generate Slide Decks. So don’t worry if you’re on the tool’s free tier — you can still create your own financial recap (and trust me, the experience is well worth seeing firsthand).