Harvard Business Review highlights how employees with financial problems spend an average of 4 office hours weekly managing their personal finances.
This shows how important it is for companies to take proactive steps to improve their employees’ financial well-being. Simple financial wellness challenge ideas can offer practical ways for your employees to learn money management and improve their financial wellness.
Financial wellness challenge: 38 fun challenges your team will love!
1. Financial wellness challenge
Employees prefer challenges that can be easily incorporated into their everyday lives without it feeling like a major new commitment. The Teamupp app takes financial wellness and turns it into activities your employees can easily implement into their schedules.
Here’s how it works:
Teamupp has several challenges to improve budgeting, savings, and investment. For every task your employees engage in, they can use photo and video challenges to share their wins. For instance, if an employee uses a coupon to reduce costs at the grocery store or if they choose to bike to work instead of driving, these are wins they can record. You can customize the tasks to suit your team’s needs and preferences.
The app also offers educational content. Your teams can take quizzes to test their knowledge about budgeting, saving, and smart spending. The best part is that Teamupp tracks all these activities, the photo and video challenges, the quizzes, and so on, and creates friendly workplace competition between teams. People earn points for completing challenges, and they can see how they stack up against others.
- Easy to integrate into daily life
- Customizable challenges
- Engaging formats
- Educational support
- Gamified tracking
- Boosts team engagement
2. Emergency fund sprint challenge
This is a challenge where employees aim to save a specific amount of money within a particular period. For instance, saving $500 in 30 days. That’s roughly $17 a day, which sounds way less daunting when you break it down. People can find this money by skipping their daily coffee run or packing lunch instead of ordering out.
3. Coupon master challenge
Challenge your team to use a certain number of coupons in a month. It could be for grocery store apps, online discount codes, old-school paper coupons, whatever works for them.
4. No-spend weekend challenge
Pick out a weekend when employees can’t spend any money. They can plan free activities like hiking or having a picnic at home with food they already have.
5. Subscription audit challenge
Most of us have subscriptions we’ve forgotten about. Challenge your teams to review their subscriptions and cancel two services they don’t actually use.
6. DIY dinner challenge
There’s no way around it; eating out is expensive. Challenge your teams to prepare healthy homemade dinners every night for one or two weeks in a row. They’ll see that this simple change saves them hundreds of dollars a month. And it’s not something they need to do all the time. The idea is to cut down the number of times they eat out every month.
7. Public transport challenge
Ask your employees to ditch their cars for a week and commute everywhere with public transportation. It’ll surprise your team how much they’ll save on gas and parking. Again, this doesn’t have to be a permanent change, but it’s something they can do once or twice a month to save money.
8. Generic brand challenge
Challenge teams to buy generic or store-brand products instead of name brands for one month. Same stuff, lower price. You could make this one fun by having teams blindfolded and taste-testing two different brands (one expensive, one cheaper) and seeing how many don’t notice a difference. They’ll probably be pretty surprised by the results!
9. Energy saving challenge
Get your team to save money on their home energy bills. They can do this by hanging clothes, adjusting the thermostat, and unplugging electronics that they don’t use.
10. Cashback rewards challenge
Employees can maximize their cashback rewards for one month, whether it’s cashback credit cards or apps like Rakuten.
11. Bulk buying challenge
Challenge teams to buy household essentials like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and other items that don’t go bad in bulk.
12. Free entertainment challenge
Every other weekend, challenge teams to use free entertainment. Libraries, free museums, parks, and any other free event in the area. This could help your employees save a tremendous amount of money every month, and the best part is, they’ll still be enjoying themselves by doing activities they may not usually choose.
13. Repair instead of replace challenge
When something breaks, challenge teams to try fixing it first before buying a replacement. It will put their DIY skills to the test and help them realize they can do a lot more themselves than they may have thought.
14. Negotiate bills challenge
Challenge your teams to call service providers and ask for better rates. Phone bills, internet, and insurance companies often have deals they don’t advertise.
15. Sell unused items challenge
Everyone has things they don’t use. Challenge employees to sell unwanted items through Facebook Marketplace, eBay, or local selling apps.
16. Price comparison challenge
Before buying anything over $50, people have to check prices from three different places to find the cheapest option.
17. Meal prep sunday challenge
Challenge your teams to prepare all their meals for the entire week every Sunday.
18. Library resource challenge
Instead of buying books, movies, or music for one month, everything has to come from the library to save money.
19. Carpool challenge
Create carpooling groups within your company to save on gas and parking.
Interested in organizing a financial wellneess challenge?
20. 30-day savings challenge
Start small and build up. Day 1: save $1, Day 2: save $2, Day 3: save $3, all the way to Day 30. Total saved: $465.
21. Budget tracking challenge
Challenge employees to track every single expense for one month. Sometimes, just seeing where the money goes is enough to spark change.
22. Investment learning challenge
Teams learn about one new investment option each week, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or retirement accounts.
23. Credit score improvement challenge
Get your employees working on boosting their credit scores by paying off debt and checking credit reports for errors.
24. Automatic savings challenge
Challenge teams to set up automatic transfers to savings accounts, no matter how small. Even $20 per week turns into over $1,000 by the end of the year.
25. Financial podcast challenge
Listen to one financial podcast episode per week, and let everyone share their takeaway with the team.
26. Debt snowball challenge
Let your teams create plans to tackle their smallest debts first, then roll those payments into paying bigger debts.
27. Side hustle challenge
Encourage your employees to start small side businesses or freelance work for extra income.
28. Insurance review challenge
Challenge teams to review their policies and shop for better rates on auto, home, or life insurance.
29. Financial goal setting challenge
Ask each team member to set one short-term, one medium-term, and one long-term financial goal.
30. Cash-only week challenge
For one week, spend only cash for non-essential purchases to cut down on impulse buying.
31. Refinancing research challenge
Let the teams research refinancing options for mortgages, auto loans, or student loans.
32. Retirement calculator challenge
Challenge your employees to use online retirement calculators to see if they’re on track.
33. Financial app challenge
Let your team try a new budgeting or savings app for one month and report back about whether they found it helpful and why.
34. Holiday savings challenge
Encourage employees to start a separate savings account just for holidays and special occasions, and add to it each week.
35. Tax preparation challenge
Get your team to learn about tax deductions and credits. Who knows, they might be eligible for some benefits they are missing out on.
36. Financial book club challenge
Read financial books and discuss them to better improve your team’s money skills.
37. Spending freeze challenge
Only essential purchases like groceries and gas are allowed for one week. Everything else can wait. This one will be a real eye-opener for many.
38. Money-saving recipe challenge
Set a challenge for your team to cook meals for under $5 per serving.
What is the cost of a financial wellness challenge?
The cost depends on the size of your team, the challenges you choose to include, and the employee wellness software you use. Many platforms offer these challenges as a part of a whole wellness program covering mental and physical health as well.
Teamupp offers one of the most affordable options. It typically charges between $0.50 and $5 per employee each month, covering daily photo and video challenges, sports, and educational content and quizzes.
Top financial wellness tips for employees
Below are practical tips that you can start implementing with your company today to start making changes and improving your employees’ financial wellness:
1. Start with empathy, not numbers
This PMC study shows that financial worries can result in mental health issues like anxiety disorders, depression, emotional exhaustion, and more. This is why your challenges should make your workforce feel supported, not judged.
Create a safe space where teams can talk about money challenges without feeling ashamed. The focus should be on empowering employees to make positive changes and take charge of their financial lives, not enforcing strict rules that will be hard for them to follow.
You should also remember that financial wellness is deeply personal. What works for one person might not work for another. Some people need help with managing daily expenses, and others need help with retirement savings. So, offer different challenge options so that employees can find the ones that suit their needs.
2. Tie challenges to real-life goals
People are better motivated to engage in activities when they know what they are working for. This is why you should tie challenges to real-life goals your employees are trying to achieve.
For instance, you can plan for employees to use the money saved from the DIY dinner challenge as part of their vacation savings pot.
When your teams know they’re saving, investing, or budgeting towards a real-life achievement, it makes the dedication worth it. Skipping one $5 coffee daily saves over $1,800 per year; that’s money that could go toward an emergency fund or something fun.
It also helps to break big financial goals into smaller steps that don’t feel overwhelming. Instead of “save for retirement” (which sounds impossible), challenge teams to increase their 381(k) contribution by just 1%.
3. Make it social and fun
Money problems are already serious enough; there’s no point in making the air stiffer with overly serious financial wellness challenges. Make the challenges something people want to participate in with friendly team competitions, photo sharing, and group activities.
Peer learning can be very effective. Encourage employees to share their financial wins as the challenges continue. Recognition keeps people motivated and shows others that putting effort into challenges can improve their financial health.
4. Focus on education, not shame
The truth is that having to open up about your finances can already be really awkward. It is important to lift this awkwardness without making your employees feel bad.
Rather than dwelling on employees’ situations, focus on providing practical information they can implement. Use simple language instead of financial jargon to ensure that important concepts are clear to your employees.
How to launch a financial wellness challenge in your company
Here’s how to start a financial wellness challenge to help your employees manage their money better:
1. Define your goals
Before jumping into any financial wellness program, figure out what you’re actually trying to achieve. Some companies aim to teach employees money management, while others focus on savings and investment.
Your goals will guide which challenges you pick and how you measure whether they’re working. Write down specific objectives like “reduce financial stress by 25%” or “get 50% more people building emergency funds.”
It’s best to involve your employees in this process. After all, the program is meant to help them. Survey your team to identify the biggest and most common money concerns and create challenges that address them.
2. Choose the right type of challenge
Different problems require different solutions, and the same goes for money problems. Make sure the challenges you choose address the main issues you’d found. For example, teams trying to improve on savings can choose challenges that reduce spending. The savings from reduced spending can contribute towards retirement, holiday, or emergency funds, or even towards paying off debt.
Choosing the right challenge also involves knowing what your teams want. Some teams prefer individual challenges they can tackle privately; others love team competitions and social activities that get everyone involved.
3. Use a platform to manage It
Managing financial wellness challenges through emails and spreadsheets gets messy fast. Employee wellness software, like Teamupp, helps keep things organized and efficient. It’s a unified platform that lets you track the challenges and monitor progress.
4. Promote it clearly and inclusively
When launching your challenge, clearly communicate what’s in it for teams and how they can participate. Many people like to keep their finances private, so it’s important to help them understand how much information they will be sharing and emphasize that they can share as much or as little as they want and that their personal information remains private.
5. Offer simple resources
Provide easy-to-use resources that support your challenges. Tools like budgeting templates, savings calculators, or money-saving apps can help make the challenge easier for your employees. You can also subscribe to premium tools for your teams to make the most of the experience.
Interested in organizing a financial wellneess challenge?
