The Best Penny Saving Challenges for 2024 - What Mommy Does (2024)

Have you heard of the penny challenge? It’s an easy way to save up $600 a year, starting with a literal penny!

The next time you see a penny in the streets, you’ll definitely stop and pick it up once you see what you can do with the money saved with these penny charts.

A Penny a Day ….Matters!

I love little ways to trick myself into save money like this – anytime I can put away some cash versus spending it is a great thing.

Some may laugh & wonder what in the world a penny a day can do, but I don’t think the real results are a laughing matter! 🙂

What’s great about this chart is that adults and kids alike can do it.

52-Week Penny Challenge Details

Before we get into the logistics of what the penny challenge is, let me explain to you how it works.

Trust me, once you hear this simple concept, you’ll be holding onto your change and making big strides in your savings goals.

What is the Annual Penny Challenge?

Basically, it’s an easy way to save up $600 a year. You start with one cent on January 1st or whatever your first day is, then add two cents on day two, three on day three, etc like so:

Day One = save .01

Day two = save .02

Day three = save .03

Dave four = save .04

………

Day 135 = save $1.35

And so on.

By the end of the first month, you are putting about 31 cents into your jar, and it builds on from there until you add $3.65 into your jar on the last day.

When you mark off your 365-day penny challenge chart, you’ll have a grand total of $667.95 saved in 12 months!

Free Penny Saving Challenge Printables + Helpful Tips

Here are some of my favorite posts + printable challenge PDF files that will give you even more ideas for the yearly cash savings challenge.

• This helpful article gives you a template that breaks down the amount you’ll save after 12 months. In addition to the printable chart, it also shows another way you could practice savings by saving a dollar weekly ($1 at week one, $10 week 10, etc)
• This blogger has created a free template that shows how much you need to save daily along with a spot to check it off as you save
• This blog has some helpful tips and tricks for making the habit of saving easy + automaticand ideas about what to do with your pile of cash at the end of the year (I love her idea about traveling—that’s my goal too!)
• This is an interesting spin on the yearly challenge! She reverses the 365-day penny challenge so you are saving the most money on the first day and only one cent by the last day.
• I love the ideas in this post about how to amp up the regular penny savings challenge for even more cash saved by the end of it.

Helpful Things to Help You Complete the Challenge

One major thing you’ll need when you are doing the 365-day long savings challenge?

Somewhere to physically put your change.

There are a lot of items you might have already at home that could work like some empty jars or an old piggy bank.

Just keep in mind that there will be a LOT of change so you might want something much larger!

Here are a few banks on Amazon I think would work really well for this project:

• 2.5-Gallon Glass Barrel Jar Lid
• Digital Coin Counter Bottle Top that goes with 3 Gallon Plastic Jug Container
• Jumbo Digital Coin Counter
• Wide Mouth Glass Mason Jar with Metal Lid

What Can You Do with the Cash You Save Up?

Now the FUN part! With any savings plan, it helps to have some motivation. I always like to suggest people have a specific end goal in mind.

It could be saving up for some fun day trips to take with the cash saved up, or buying Christmas gifts or even paying off a card.

Personally, I love seeing new places, so I usually am focused on saving up for travel.

Something that would be a great motivator is a visual of the place you want to go with the total saved amount.

If your goal is to take your family to Disney World, paste a big picture of the Disney Castle on your jar. Or you could even set up a reoccurring reminder to “save money for Disney trip!”

I Heart Frugal has a great blog post about what you can do with the cash + exactly how much you’ll have at the end of each week.

Get your Kids Involved

A 365-day penny challenge is a great opportunity to teach children how to save money.

There are so many ways you could work them into this challenge! One easy way is to let them do chores to earn what they need to complete the chart.

How many pennies could they earn from dusting picture frames? Or pairing together socks and putting them in a drawer?

Here’s an entire post I put together if you need more age-appropriate chore ideas.

See? It’s easy to get the entire family involved.

Just imagine if each member of your household did a penny challenge on their own! You’d be able to take an amazing trip as a family yearly with all your saved funds.

Be sure to share any ideas you have for the penny challenge in the comments below! 🙂

Would you like to save up $1000 instead?

I have a 26-week / $1000 challenge you can print out.

Click here to get the $1000 savings tracker >>

Related Reading:

• How I’m Saving Up $3,500 for Disney
• 10 Ways to Make Extra Money for Christmas Presents
• My Favorite 52-Week Money Saving Challenge
• How to Save $1,000 in 26 Weeks