PocketGuard: Autonomous Daily Life & Expense Assistant

An autonomous AI agent that audits daily digital spending, catches hidden recurring fees, and drafts bill-payment reminders to protect everyday budgets.

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Inspiration

Managing everyday expenses, subscription renewals, and routine bills often leads to unexpected fees or forgotten dates. We wanted to build an autonomous, proactive assistant that quietly operates in the background to audit digital spending, track subscription lifecycles, and alert users before costly renewals occur.

What it does

PocketGuard leverages the AWS Strands Agents SDK to autonomously monitor digital transactions and scheduled obligations. It periodically:

  • Evaluates recent payment logs for unexpected charges or recurring micro-transactions.
  • Monitors subscription end-dates and sends actionable reminders before renewal windows close.
  • Answers user spending queries through natural-language reasoning with dedicated local tools.

How we built it

  • Orchestration: Built using the AWS Strands Agents SDK in Python, setting up an autonomous reasoning loop.
  • Custom Tools: Created custom Python tool functions for balance verification, subscription timeline checks, and threshold alerts.
  • Inference & Logic: Connected the Strands agent to an LLM foundation model to interpret structured financial data and generate concise, user-facing summaries.

Challenges we faced

  • Ensuring the agent autonomously triggers the correct tools without hallucinating payment details.
  • Designing a deterministic schema for handling dates and subscription frequencies to ensure reliable alerts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Successfully implementing a functional Strands Agents SDK loop with custom tool integration.
  • Keeping the architecture lightweight and accessible for everyday consumer financial management.

What we learned

  • How to structure tool definitions and system prompts to guide autonomous agent decision-making using Strands.
  • Best practices for designing agent loops that handle everyday human admin tasks reliably.

What's next for PocketGuard

  • Adding automated SMS/WhatsApp alerts for high-priority renewal warnings.
  • Integrating multi-currency support and direct bank/wallet API connectors.

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