Financial Literacy
Challenge

Fall 2025 Financial Literacy Challenge!

Have your students compete against other PersonalFinanceLab classrooms across the country!

Budget Game

Budget Game

Stock Game

Stock Game

Tutorials

Tutorials



How does the Challenge Work?

This is a free competition where students learn through playing an engaging budgeting game, and a real-time stock market game, with national rankings and prizes!

Students participate in our Budgeting and/or Investing games, starting with $500 in their investing account, and $500 in their checking account. Students can play through our budgeting game to earn (and save) more money, which can then be invested in their Stock Game portfolio.

If you are already using PersonalFinanceLab in your class this fall, you do not need to register separately. Your students will be prompted with an invite to join when they log in during the registration and contest period.

If you are not already using PersonalFinanceLab this Fall but received a special invitation to join, or want to invite students who are not already using PersonalFinanceLab in their classes, see the FAQ information below for registration details.



Financial Literacy
Challenge

October 20 to November 21

Registration is now open!

Regional Prizes

Student Prizes

Prizes Total of

$500
$500

The top 5 students from both the Budget Game and Stock Game will each win a $50 Amazon Gift Card.

Teacher Prizes

Prizes Total of

$300
$300

3 teachers will receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card. Students can nominate their teacher, and we’ll pick 3 lucky winners who will each get a $100 Amazon Gift Card.


What’s Included?

Budget Game

Students practice managing a monthly budget, and building their emergency savings fund while learning how to make responsible money management decisions.

Learn more

Stock Game

Students practice managing a virtual portfolio of US stocks, bonds and mutual funds. With live rankings, research tools, and real-time prices.

Learn more

Tutorials & Lessons

80+ self-graded personal finance lessons and financial literacy tutorial videos. Teachers can track student progress and grades.

Learn more

What are the Rules?

  • Trading is open from October 20 to November 21, 2025.
  • Students may trade US stocks and ETFs, and US mutual funds, and bonds.
  • Students can transfer additional savings from the Budgeting Game to the Stock Game to make more investments.
  • Students manage a virtual portfolio in the stock game, starting with $500 in cash.
  • Students can transfer additional savings from the Budgeting Game to the Stock Game to make more investments.
  • For prize purposes, rankings in the Stock Game are based on total portfolio percentage return. This means students who transfer more money from the budgeting game to the stock game are not at an advantage.
  • There is a $5 minimum price for all stocks.
  • Students may short sell and buy on margin.
  • Students may day trade.
  • Students must finish the Stock Game with a total portfolio value of $1,000 to be eligible for prizes. This means students must begin the budget game and transfer at least an additional $500 to their virtual portfolio to qualify for stock game rankings.
  • Students must make a minimum of 10 trades in the Stock Game to qualify for prizes.
  • Students may only invest 25% of their portfolio in any one security. Fractional trading is allowed.
  • Each student is allowed only one entry.
  • Students can play the Budget Game from October 20 to November 21, 2025.
  • The game includes 12 months of gameplay where students manage their bills and expenses.
  • They start as students with part-time jobs, and after 6 months graduate and take on full-time jobs.
  • Students earn the most amount of points for meeting their monthly savings goals, with additional points earned by building their Credit Score, Emergency Fund, and building their Quality of Life.
  • Students can choose to transfer part of their Budget Game savings to their Stock Game portfolio. Money transferred from the Budget Game to the Stock Game is counted towards savings goals, but not towards their Emergency Fund.
  • Students will also be required to complete mini-lessons on financial literacy topics as they play the game in order to proceed.

PersonalFinanceLab Certificate of Completion

Students taking part in the Financial Literacy Challenge also have access to over 80 supplemental lessons on personal finance topics.

These lessons are available from when a student is registered until the end of May. Completing all lessons is NOT a requirement to be eligible for prizes.

However, each student who completes all supplemental lessons by December 31, 2025 will earn the PersonalFinanceLab Certificate of Completion. Students can downloaded their certificate from their student dashboard as a PDF.

These lessons cover topics across:

  • Budgeting, Saving, and Spending
  • Managing Credit
  • Income and Taxes
  • Risk and Financial Decision Making
  • Investing

Financial Literacy Challenge FAQ

  • If I am a new teacher who currently is not using PersonalFinanceLab, how can I register my class?

    Click on our Register Now button to create your free teacher profile. After logging in, you will be prompted to generate usernames and passwords for your students, which you can then distribute to your class. Note: our Fall challenge is limited to schools who have an active site license for PersonalFinanceLab or received a special invitation.

  • If I am a returning teacher from last year’s challenge, how can I participate this year?

    First, log into your existing teacher account from last year’s competition. Then you can click the Registration Link to add this year’s challenge to your account, and generate a fresh batch of student logins for your current class.

  • Is the challenge free?

    Yes, the Challenge is completely free. However, registration is limited to school districts who have an active site license to PersonalFinanceLab, or have received a special invitation from our team.

  • Can my school participate if I already have a site license to PersonalFinanceLab?

    Yes. If you are already using PersonalFinanceLab in your classroom and your current students wish to participate, they will be prompted with a “Join Challenge” button when they log in during the challenge period, which will add the Challenge to their account (separate from your class).

    If you have other classes who are NOT already using PersonalFinanceLab that wish to participate in the challenge, you will need to log out of your existing teacher account, and register a separate free Financial Literacy Challenge teacher account to generate user logins for the additional students.

    Students participating in the Financial Literacy Challenge are NOT counted towards any site license limits.

  • Do students need to participate in both games?

    No, students can choose to participate only in the budget game, only in the stock game, or both games. However, students will need to at least begin playing the Budgeting Game and transfer cash over to their Stock Game portfolio to have the required minimum portfolio value to be eligable for prizes.

  • How much class time does it take for students to participate in the Challenge?

    Completing the budget game, from start to finish, takes about 3.5 hours for most high school students. This can be accomplished in the classroom or at home as a supplement. Completing the stock game varies by student interest level – building an intial portfolio and conducting stock research for a student who has never participated in an investing game before takes approximately 2 hours.

  • Do I need to be from a school to participate?

    Other organizations are invited to participate in the Financial Literacy Challenge, but only k-12 schools are eligible for prizes.

  • How are student’s scores calculated in the Budget Game?

    Students’ scores in the budget game come from 4 places: setting (and reaching) monthly Savings Goals of at least 10% of their expected income each month of the game, building an Emergency Fund of at least $1,000 in their savings account, using their credit card responsibly to build up their Credit Score, and building their Quality of Life by spending their money wisely (including making purchases to furnish their Apartment). Small amounts of bonus points are also earned by participating in Comparison Shopping, and other mini-games throughout the game.

  • Do you collect any personally-identifiable information from students participating in the challenge?

    No. If you are registering as a new teacher as part of an invitation, teachers generate randomized usernames and passwords for their class, which they distribute to their students. PersonalFinanceLab does not ask for or retain any personally-identifable information from students participating in the Challenge.

  • What can students trade in the Stock Game?

    Students can trade stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds trading on US exchanges (including but not limited to NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX), plus a selection of US corporate and treasury bonds.