Gamification: Leveling Up Your Personal Finance Game

Sometimes, budgeting can feel like a chore. It’s talked about on every platform on this planet and of course, when it comes to budgeting apps, there’s no shortage of advice as I’m sure you’ve seen with one Google Search.

Sometimes our brains crave excitement, adventure, and challenges and gamification does just that while also helping you navigate your financial wellness.

Gamification in personal finance transforms mundane money management into an engaging adventure. By incorporating game-like elements such as challenges, rewards, and point systems, personal finance becomes thrilling, making it seem less of a boring old chore and more of an exciting quest.

Whether aiming to boost savings, stick to a budget, or improve borrowing habits, gamification offers a fun alternative to traditional budgeting methods.

Remember, the goal isn't just to have fun. Gamification guides you to learn about money management and reach your financial goals. It's a clever way to build better habits from borrowing to budgeting.

Some strategies that gamification uses are:

1. Round-Up Savings Challenge: Use apps that round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and save the difference. It makes saving easier!

2. Savings Goal Visualization: Set a specific savings goal and use apps to track your progress visually like watching a virtual city grow or a progress bar fill up.

3. Reward-Based Savings: Join programs that offer tangible rewards for meeting savings milestones. Some apps give you coins to play games or win cash prizes when you hit savings targets.

4. No-Spend Challenge: Try not to spend money for a week. Track the amount you would have spent and transfer it to your savings at the end. This game spots your spending habits and boosts savings!

5. Competitive Saving: Challenge friends to see who can save the most in a set time for added motivation and fun.

The Psychology of Gamification in Finance

Why is it that gamification seems to work so well amongst the youth? Gamification taps into your brain’s reward system by using game elements like points, badges, and leaderboards to encourage you to push further. When you hit a savings goal or complete a financial task, you get a small “win”. This feeling motivates you to keep going.

This triggers a release of sweet sweet dopamine creating a sense of achievement and pleasure and naturally, you want more. It's like the thrill of playing a game but with real financial benefits.

Gamified finance apps also use social features to boost motivation. Competing against others and seeing your progress satisfies your need for social status. A little bit of competition is always a good thing to encourage you to improve your financial habits and do better.

By turning boring money tasks into challenges, gamification helps you build better financial behaviors. It makes learning about complex financial concepts easier, far more memorable, and interactive.

Real-world case studies

You may think this is a childish way to save up or “does it actually even work?”.

Let’s find out.

Fortune City

This app found itself reaching heights of success in Asia in particular around 2018. With Fortune City, you can build and grow a virtual city based on your financial habits. Daily expenses and income are logged and each expense affects the growth of your town and various spending categories create different types of buildings. This method enables users to dive into their financial habits visually.

Results-

• Users found themselves logging their expenses 2.5 times more frequently than they would with traditional budgeting apps.

• Has helped 90% of users to better understand their spending habits.

Acorns

This investment app rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the change/extra amount. Let’s say you spend $4.50 on a coffee, Acorns rounds this to $5 and invests the remaining $0.50.

The app rewards you with cashback options through its “Found Money” feature. Acorns, having partnered with various brands, allows you to purchase items from their partnered brands. This taps into your reward system, making you feel as though your spending is more “productive”.

Results-

• The app recorded over 8.2 million users (as of 2021).

• 74% of Acorns users got into investing for the first time through the app.

• $30 per month invested for the average Acorns user.

Top 5 Gamified Finance Apps and Their Features

Let’s dive into the real reason why you’ve read this far into the article. Here are some examples of finance apps you can try to gamify your finances (but not limited to):

1. Qapital: This app uses a subscription model and offers features like Payday Divvy, expense tracking, and robo-investing. It helps you save an average of $4,300.00 per year through various savings rules and challenges.

   Ideal for:

- People who struggle with saving consistently and need a bit of motivation

- People with specific financial/savings goals they’d like to achieve like vacations

1. Long Game: This savings app turns saving into a game. You earn Coins for deposits, which you can use to play lottery-style games with chances to win money or cryptocurrency.

   Ideal for:

- People who enjoy games and want something to feel less like a chore

- People who are motivated by the opportunity to win rewards and prizes while saving.

1. Stash: An investing app that offers automated investing through Smart Portfolio. It provides personalized advice and educational resources to help you invest with confidence.

   Ideal for:

- New beginner investors who feel overwhelmed

- People searching for an all-in-one app with banking, investing, and educational features to keep learning

1. SmartyPig: An app that helps you set realistic savings goals and track their progress with a piggy bank that fills up gradually as you save more and more! You can share your goals on social media adding a social element and an opportunity to connect with others and become competitive!

   Ideal for:

- People with specific financial goals such as buying a car or building an emergency fund.

- Goal-oriented savers who need a bit of help staying more organized.

1. Yotta: An app that combines saving and budgeting with a lottery system offering you a chance to win lottery-like prizes. Yotta also provides a competitive interest rate on a savings account so that you can earn interest on your savings on the side as well!

   Ideal for:

- Risk-takers and lottery players

- Beginners to saving and people motivated by prizes and lotteries

Questing your way through your finances makes money management way more thrilling than just logging expenses in an Excel sheet, right? By setting goals, tracking progress, and earning little rewards, you can stay motivated to save, pay off debt, or build that emergency fund you’ve been putting off. Level up your personal finance game, and watch how much easier—and more exciting—money moves can be!

Keep an eye out on Maybe for more personal finance tips and tricks!