✅ Penny a day challenge UK

Ever heard of the ‘penny a day’ savings challenge in the UK?

I'm Steph, mum of three! 👋
Here, I share practical insights on making (and saving!) money. With a knack for budgeting and a passion for financial freedom, I've picked up lots of tips & tricks along the way. And I can't wait to share them with you here!

It’s a fantastic way to painlessly save money and end up with a nice savings pot in a years time.

The ‘Penny a day saving challenge’ can give you a nice little nest egg at the end of the year without you really noticing you’re even saving, which has to be the best way of saving, in our book :)

✅ What is the penny challenge?

The penny challenge is a very simple idea.

The penny challenge is a savings challenge that helps you create a savings pot of over £650 in a year buy saving small amounts, often, and every day throughout the year.

Starting on January 1st (of course you can start this at any time, but the challenge lasts for a year and Jan 1st seems as good a time as any!) you simply start by putting a penny away on day 1, 2p away on day 2, 3p away on day 3 etc…and on it goes, un til you out away £3.65 on day 365.
It looks like this:

Day 1 – save 1p
Day 2 – save 2p
Day 3 – save 3p
Day 4 – save 4p
Day 5 – save 5p
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Day 100 – save £1 (100p)
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Day 200 – save £2
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Day 300 – Save 3
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Day 365 – save £3.65
Total – £671.61 (assuming it’s not a leap year, when you’d save for an extra day!)

✅ How does penny a day challenge work?

You save 1p starting on the first day you take the challenge on, or Jan 1st for many of us. Then on day two you save 2p, and keep saving the equivalent pennies to the day of the challenge you’re on.

I guess officially you save in the correct order…1p on day one, 2p on day 2 etc…but you don’t have to, no one’s going to know…..so if you’ve got more to save in loose change on a particular day and it’s easier to save the larger amounts earlier on in the year…go for it :)

✅ How much do you save with the penny challenge?

Saving using the 1p challenge method will give you over £650 at the end of the year.

If you’re like me and find it hard to save money, this is a painless way of building yourself up a savings account and as I do, making sure you’ve got some money to spend around the expensive holiday season without having to borrow cash.

✅ What happens if you save a penny every day?

Saving a penny every day will give you a grand total of £3.65 by the end of the year, or £3.66 if it happens to be a leap year!

Not quite what you were hoping for? Me neither, which is why we have to try a little harder than that!
This 1p savings challenge gives you a substantial savings pot without too much effort.

✅ What happens if you double a penny every day for 30 days?

What happens if you double a penny every day for 30 days? Some thing magical ?? that’s what!!

It seems incredible that at the end of 30 days you’d have a whopping £5,368,709.12. Yes, that’s millions we’re talking about.

How does this sorcery happen? It’s the power of compounding at work here.

Look at this list of days, it all looks pretty achievable until around day 10, then not so much :)

Day 1 – 1p
Day 2 – 2p
Day 3 – 4p
Day 4 – 8p
Day 5 – 16p
Day 6 – 32p
Day 7 – 64p
Day 8 – £1.28
Day 9 – £2.56
Day 10 – £5.12
Day 11 – £10.24
Day 12 – £20.48
Day 13 – £40.96
Day 14 – £81.92
Day 15 – £163.84
Day 16 – £327.68
Day 17 – £655.36
Day 18 – £1,310.72
Day 19 – £2,621.44
Day 20 – £5,242.88
Day 21 – £10,485.76
Day 22 – £20,971.52
Day 23 – £41,943.04
Day 24 – £83,886.08
Day 25 – £167,772.16
Day 26 – £335,544.32
Day 27 – £671,088.64
Day 28 – £1,342,177.28
Day 29 – £2,684,354.56
Day 30 – £5,368,709.12

So you can see, while this isn’t going to be achieved by many of us, it’s a great example of the power of a penny, and proves the old adage of ‘look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves!’.

✅ 365 day saving money challenge

The 1p savings challenge is also known as the 365 day money challenge, because you save over 365 days!

Saving money can be really hard, but it’s so important not to get discouraged and give up all together.

If you don’t manage to keep up with your daily savings each and every day, don’t give up!

The most important things is that you try and save when you can, and if you’re able to make a little extra cash on the side in some way, all the better.

You never know, finding a way to bring in some extra money throughout the year could see you managing to save way over the goals of the 1p challenge!

These are some ways you could look at bringing in some extra money:

✅ Penny challenge chart printable

If you’re about to start the 1p savings challenge, it’s a good idea to download and print one of these printables.

It really helps with motivation to see you’re savings growing and see how far you’ve come since you started. When the motivation starts to leave, that’s when willpower needs to kick in!

Put one of these on your fridge and it’ll be a visual reminder several times a day that you’re on the right track!

✅ FREE 1p savings challenge chart

Use this chart here to tick off days you save – feel free to pick any day you like – if you’ve got more one week, save more, if things are tight, save a smaller amount.