Christmas Gift Budget: An AI Agent Is Watching My Kids’ Lists Until Christmas

A Christmas gift budget is easier to keep when you aren’t the one checking prices every week. This year I set $250 for each of my two kids, had an AI agent build a short list for each of them, and gave it the watching too. From now until Christmas it checks prices and delivery dates and messages me when something on a list is worth buying.

This is an experiment, and it’s still running. I’m not buying everything today. The point is the sales between now and Christmas: Amazon’s October sale, Black Friday and whatever shows up in between. I’d rather have something else keep an eye on them.

Update: The agent found the chess set for $30 less. I purchased it, and my son’s list was updated. I’ll keep adding to this post as the experiment goes.

By the end, you’ll have both prompts I used, my kids’ lists with the prices I started from and a setup you can copy today.

The short answer

Set a limit per kid. Have an AI agent build a short list for each one with today’s prices, and correct what it gets wrong. Then, in the same chat, give it a goal: watch these, tell me when a price drops, make sure it arrives in time, and ask me before buying anything.

The first part is one chat. The second part runs on its own until December.

The rules I set for the Christmas gift budget

1. $250 a kid, tax and shipping included. Two kids, so $500.
2. Being on the list isn’t a reason to buy. Something gets bought when the price is right.
3. It has to be here by December 20. A good price on something that shows up on the 27th isn’t a deal.
4. The agent asks first. It finds and it tells me. I decide.

Your numbers will be different. Pick them before you look at a single product.

Step one: the list prompt

I did all of this on October 6 in Muse, Meta’s AI agent, in one chat. I’m using Muse because it’s free. I run the same kind of watch with Grok and with ChatGPT, so use the one you already have.

Here’s the prompt I sent.

I'm planning Christmas gifts and I want you to do the looking. My budget is $250 per person, and that has to cover tax and shipping.

Here's who I'm shopping for and what they're into:
[one line per person]

For each person, search current listings and build a plan that fits the budget: one main gift and a few smaller ones. Try to aim for 3-4 gifts for each of them.

For every item, give me the exact product name and version, the store, the price you saw today and the link. If you can't see a current price, say so. Don't guess.

Tell me in one line why it fits that person. Flag anything I should check first, like whether they already own it, the size or the age rating.

Add up each person's total and show what's left. Don't buy anything. I'll check the links myself.

My kids’ lines went where the brackets are.

My 7th grader: Minecraft, Nintendo Switch, Pokemon games and cards, Lego, Beyblades, basketball, chess, guitar.
My 5th grader: art and art supplies, Disney movies, skating, dolls, painting and drawing.

Muse opened its own browser and started going through stores. It came back with a plan for each kid, and both came in under $250.

My 7th grader’s list: Lego, Pokemon cards and a chess set I had to be specific about

His line is the longest, so there’s a lot for it to work with.

Muse builds his first plan entirely at Walmart. The main gift is a LEGO Minecraft gift set, five small sets in one box, at $74.94. Under it are a Pokemon TCG Journey Together Booster Build & Battle Box at $37.79, marked down from $44.99, a Beyblade X Soar Phoenix launcher set at $24.90 and a magnetic wooden chess set at $29.99. With tax that’s about $181.45, which leaves about $68.55.

It flags three things. He may already own some of the small Minecraft sets in that box. The Pokemon box comes from a third-party seller and ships from Walmart. And the chess set has no brand name, so the quality is unknown.

Two things miss. The Minecraft box would be too easy for him. He’d be bored putting it together, and I usually get him adult sets now. And he plays chess in rated tournaments, so an unbranded magnetic set isn’t what he’d use. I wrote “Lego” and “chess” and nothing else, and Muse filled in the rest.

So I tell it both things and send a screenshot of the kind of chess set I mean, a tournament travel set from A&A with a 20-inch silicone board and weighted pieces. My screenshot was an Amazon listing at $42.33. Muse couldn’t open Amazon to confirm that price, and A&A’s own store had the set at $48.80 and sold out. So it offers a close match that’s in stock, the Wholesale Chess Standard Chess Set Combination with Silicone Board, at $31.95. Muse says the board and the king are the same size, and the pieces are triple weighted where the A&A set’s are quadruple weighted. It recommends putting the $31.95 set on the list and watching for the A&A set to come back in stock. I take that.

For the main gift, Muse swaps the box of five small sets for LEGO Minecraft: The Crafting Table, a display set marked 18 and up. It’s upfront about the price. The listing it found is $94.99 at a hobby shop, which is $5 over LEGO’s own $89.99. Muse calls it the right set for his level and not a deal price.

If your kid is serious about a hobby, say how serious. A screenshot of the exact set got me further than the word “chess” did.

On his watch list, with the price I’m starting from:

• LEGO Minecraft: The Crafting Table, $94.99
• Pokemon TCG Journey Together Booster Build & Battle Box, $37.79
• Beyblade X Soar Phoenix launcher set, $24.90
• Wholesale Chess standard set with silicone board, $31.95

That’s $189.63 before tax and about $205.27 with my local sales tax. It leaves about $44.73 for shipping.

My 5th grader’s list: a castle, an art set and skates she didn’t need

Her line says art and art supplies, Disney movies, skating, dolls, painting and drawing.

Her first plan comes from four stores. The main gift is an adjustable roller skate set from Chicago Skates at $79.97, with pads and a helmet in the box. Then an Art 101 wood art set, 88 pieces, at $49.99 from Toys”R”Us. A Cinderella singing doll at $29.99 from the Disney Store. And a Faber-Castell Learn to Watercolor set at $22. That’s about $196.96 with tax, before shipping.

It says up front that the skates need her shoe size, and that one of the two size ranges is sold out.

Then Target comes into it. Target had stopped Muse partway through the search, which I’ll get to below. Once that’s cleared, Muse says the Target pass gives her a stronger plan, and it rebuilds the list. The new main gift is the LEGO Disney Princess Castle & Royal Pets, set 43267, at $72.79, marked down from $103.99. The skates become a cheaper adjustable pair at Target for $34.99. The watercolor set drops off.

Skates are the miss on her list. She doesn’t need new ones. She’s taking skating lessons now, so I ask what someone learning at an indoor rink would use. I wrote “skating” and it did the reasonable thing with one word. Muse drops the skates and comes back with a skate bag at $19.99 and a set of kids’ knee, elbow and wrist pads at $24.99, both in stock at Target. It flags the pads: the listing says they fit ages 5 to 10, so her fit needs checking before that one gets bought.

I like the castle for her. She’ll enjoy putting it together. Muse tells me to check that she doesn’t already have a big Disney castle set.

There’s one more thing on her watch. I sent Muse a screenshot of the LEGO Beauty and the Beast Castle, 43263. She asked for it last year and I couldn’t find a good deal on it. It’s $279.99, which is more than her whole budget, and Muse says so. I tell it to let me know if it finds the set much cheaper at another store, and not to rebuild her gifts around it otherwise. Muse looked outside Amazon and found nothing cheaper: $279.99 at LEGO and $389 from a seller on Walmart’s site. It offered to tell me only if the price falls to about $190. I set that line at $175.

If one of your lines has a word like “skating” or “music” in it, add what they already own. One word leaves a lot of room.

On her watch list, with the price I’m starting from:

• LEGO Disney Princess Castle & Royal Pets 43267, $72.79
• Art 101 wood art set, 88 pieces, $49.99
• Cinderella singing doll, $29.99
• Skate bag, $19.99
• Kids’ protective pads, $24.99, fit to check

That’s $197.75 before tax and about $214.06 with it. It leaves about $35.94 for shipping.

Two places Muse couldn’t go on its own

Target. Partway through the search, Target showed Muse a check that asks you to press and hold a button to prove you’re a person. Muse paused its browser and gave me three choices: clear the check myself, skip Target and use other stores, or let it try to solve it.

I picked the first one. The browser panel said I was in control. I pressed and held, and Target’s home page loaded. Muse had told me the search would pick up on its own when I was done, and it did.

Muse didn’t wait on me, either. It finished both first plans from the other stores and told me the Target question was still open. Clearing it is what turned up the castle on my 5th grader’s list.

Amazon. Muse’s browser couldn’t get into Amazon. When I sent it an Amazon listing, it said it couldn’t confirm the price and gave me two choices: try Amazon anyway, which it said would likely fail, or skip Amazon and use other stores. I picked skip. Muse says it sees Amazon prices through catalog listings and deal roundups, and it can’t confirm them on the live page.

That’s how it went for me on one day, and it may not stay that way. Shopping agents are new. As they get built into the stores’ own platforms, what they can reach on their own could change. For now, expect to step in once in a while. And if your agent couldn’t open the page a price came from, check that price yourself before you count on it.

Step two: the goal prompt

A chat assistant answers when you ask it something. An agent keeps going after you close the app. That’s the part this job needs, because nobody wants to check nine product pages every week until December.

Meta says Muse “keeps working after people close the app, and comes back when something changes.” (Meta’s Muse announcement) It also has a way to hand it a long-running goal, and Meta says it checks with you before it makes a purchase.

I sent this in the same chat. I didn’t wait for every pick. Muse was still looking for the chess set and the skating gear when the goal went out, and it added both to the watch once I’d picked.

I have a goal for you: buy Christmas gifts for my two kids, $250 each, delivered by December 20.

Use the lists we just settled on, with today's prices as the starting prices. Watch them from now until Christmas and message me when something is worth buying.

The rules:
- $250 per kid has to cover tax and shipping.
- A price only counts as a deal if it's lower than today's price.
- Everything has to arrive by December 20. Check the delivery date before you tell me about a deal. If standard shipping is too slow, tell me what faster shipping costs. If slower shipping is cheaper and still arrives in time, tell me that too.
- Check any store, and look again during big sales like Amazon's October sale and Black Friday.
- If you find something better that fits their interests and the budget, suggest it.
- Keep a running total for each kid so I can see what's left.
- Ask me before you buy anything.

When you message me, give me the store, the full price with tax and shipping, the delivery date and the link.

To start, tell me your plan and anything you need from me.

Muse answered that the goal was set up and the watch was live. Then it laid out its plan and asked me two things: where to draw the line on the big castle, and which address to use for delivery estimates.

What it’s watching between now and Christmas

Prices. Muse recorded the October 6 price of every item as the number to beat. A sale only counts if it’s lower than that.

A schedule. I named the sales and the deadline. Muse picked the dates and set up five checks:

• A price check every three days, starting Friday, October 9.
• A pass on October 7 for Amazon’s October Prime sale.
• A pass on Black Friday, November 27.
• A pass on Cyber Monday, November 30.
• A last call on December 13, one week before my deadline, with anything still unbought that can arrive in time.

Delivery dates. Before anything counts as a deal, it checks the delivery estimate to my address. If standard shipping misses December 20, it tells me what the faster option costs. If slower shipping is cheaper and still makes it, it tells me that too. It also told me plainly that no delivery dates have been confirmed yet.

The running total. Each kid has $250. Every message comes with that kid’s total and what’s left.

When I hear from it. Only when something drops below its starting price, something clearly better turns up or the deadline is at risk.

The first deal message came the same day, and I passed

Later that day Muse messaged me about a set that wasn’t on either list: the LEGO Pokemon Eevee building set, 72151. Deal sites were reporting it at $47.99 on Amazon for the October Prime sale, down from $59.99, and the sale ended the next day. It fits two things on my 7th grader’s line, Lego and Pokemon.

It was clear about what it didn’t know. It couldn’t open Amazon to confirm the $47.99, so the price came from two deal roundups that agreed. It hadn’t confirmed stock, or whether the price needed a Prime membership.

Then it did the math against his budget. As a fifth gift, the Eevee set would put him at about $257 with tax, about $7 over his limit before shipping. As a swap for the Beyblade set or the Pokemon card box, it fit.

It gave me three choices: swap it for the Beyblade set, swap it for the card box or pass. I passed. His list stays as it is.

Look at what’s in that message: the item, the price, where the price came from, what it couldn’t check and what buying it does to the budget. You’ll say no to some of these. That’s the setup working.

How buying works: Shop Pay, or a link

To make buying easier, I signed in to Shop Pay inside Muse. When it’s time to buy, the approval comes to me as a push notification, and I approve or deny it. Nothing gets bought until I approve. At the October 6 test, nothing on these lists had been bought, so I hadn’t used this purchase flow for the experiment.

I did that for convenience. Shop Pay only works at stores that take it. Where a store doesn’t, I’ll enter my payment details myself. If you aren’t comfortable connecting a way to pay, skip it. Tell Muse to send you links to what it finds and do the buying yourself. The watching works the same either way.

The October 6 starting point

October 6. Lists settled and starting prices recorded. Goal set in Muse. One deal message, passed. Nothing bought.

My plan from here: when one of the bigger gifts on a list hits a good price, I’ll buy it. The smaller ones can wait. And the lists may still change if I hear the kids mention something new.

The first scheduled pass is October 7, the second day of Amazon’s October Prime sale.

How to set this up for your own kids today

1. Pick the number and the date. Set a limit per kid, decide whether it covers tax and shipping, and choose the day everything has to be in the house.
2. Write one line per kid. Start with what they’re into. Then add what rules things out: sizes you know, what they already own and how far along they are in a hobby.
3. Send the list prompt. Use an agent or an assistant that can search the web. Read the flags first.
4. Correct it in the same chat. Say what they already have. Send a screenshot of the exact thing if you have one in mind. Step in if a store asks for a person.
5. Send the goal prompt. Change the budget and the date to yours.
6. Answer when it messages you. Run the short check below before you say yes to anything.

If you don’t have an agent, you can still do this. Save the goal prompt and paste it into your assistant once a week with your lists. It’s the same watch with you as the reminder.

The more detail you give up front, the better your first list will be. A Lego set, a chess set and a pair of skates came off because my lines were short. Put in what each kid already owns, the sizes you know and how far along they are in a hobby, and you’ll have less to take off afterward.

Check before you buy

• Open the link and confirm the exact item, the version and the seller.
• Confirm the price at checkout, with tax and shipping added.
• Confirm the delivery date at checkout, not the one on the product page.
• Confirm the fit: size and age mark.
• Check the return window. A gift can sit wrapped for weeks before anyone opens it.

Both prompts ran on October 6, 2026, in Muse, Meta’s AI agent, on my real lists. Prices are the ones Muse reported that day, and totals use my local sales tax. Muse couldn’t open Amazon’s pages, so the Amazon sale price came from deal sites. At that point, delivery dates hadn’t been confirmed and nothing had been bought. The goal is still running. Update: the agent found the chess set for $30 less. I purchased it, and my son’s list was updated.

Start with one number and one date

Everything here came from a number, a date and one line per kid. The agent built the lists and does the watching. I do the part only I can do, which is knowing that my daughter doesn’t need new skates and that my son is past a beginner chess set.

Tonight, pick your number and your date and write one line per kid. Once you start buying, keep the order confirmations and return dates in your household file so they’re easy to find in January. If you want the money set aside before you buy, add the gift total as a savings goal in the One-Sitting Budget, and it works out how much to put away each month. The same agent also built my Walmart pickup cart for team snack bags: 10 bags for $32.63.