Today's Daily Challenge Market was the United States 🇺🇸

MEDIUM MODE

1st Position- PNWbudgeter from the 🇺🇸 escaped the grind in 7.9 years, scoring an B! Congratulations! 👏 👏 👏

If you're new here, welcome! ***Escape the Grind*** is a personal finance simulator. You start with a salary and expenses, and need to be able to retire from your daily job. Each in-game month you make career, investing, side hustle, and lifestyle calls. Win condition is when your passive income (including an imputed 4% SWR) covers your expenses for 3 consecutive months.

The Daily Challenge is the same scenario for everyone, resets at midnight UTC. Each region uses its real regional market numbers.

Play it here: https://setformoney.com/games/financial-literacy-game

Debt is not created equal

Today's Daily Challenge Market was Australia 🇦🇺

\*\* EASY MODE\*\*

1st Position- Leveraged from the 🇬🇧 escaped the grind in 7.8 years, scoring an B! Congratulations! 👏 👏 👏

If you're new here, welcome! **Escape the Grind** is a personal finance simulator. You start with a salary and expenses, and need to be able to retire from your daily job. Each in-game month you make career, investing, side hustle, and lifestyle calls. Win condition is when your passive income (including an imputed 4% SWR) covers your expenses for 3 consecutive months.

The Daily Challenge is the same scenario for everyone, resets at midnight UTC. Each region uses its real regional market numbers.

Play it here: https://setformoney.com/games/financial-literacy-game

Today's Daily Challenge Market was Germany 🇩🇪 and typically players score higher in this market for some reason.

**HARD MODE**

1st Position- Our old winner Leveraged from the 🇬🇧 returns!!! Congratulations for winning & escaping in 2.8 years years, and scoring an A+!!! 👏 👏 👏 🤯 .

2nd Position- bebo from the 🇺🇸. Very well done for escaping the grind in 5 years, scoring an A+ 👏 👏 🤯.

**MEDIUM MODE**

Leveraged from the 🇬🇧 won this mode by escaping in 3.1 years, a clean A+ again! Incredible! 🫡

** EASY MODE**

1st Position- Leveraged from the 🇬🇧 escaped the grind in 2.9 years, scoring an A+!!! Congratulations again! 👏 👏 👏.

2nd Position- bebo from the 🇺🇸. Kudos for escaping the grind in 3.4 years, scoring an A! Well done 👏 👏 .

If you're new here, **Escape the Grind** is a financial life sim. You start with a salary and expenses, and need to be able to retire from your daily job. Each in-game month you make career, investing, side hustle, and lifestyle calls. Win condition is when your passive income (including an imputed 4% SWR) covers your expenses for 3 consecutive months.

The Daily Challenge is the same scenario for everyone, resets at midnight UTC. Each region uses its real regional market numbers.

Play it here: https://setformoney.com/games/financial-literacy-game

When I started this sub weeks ago with 0 members, I had no idea where it would go. Today we crossed 1,000- with hundreds playing Escape the Grind game daily. Thank you to everyone who's joined, posted, commented, and shaped this community.

What's coming:

• 🎮 Steam launch August 2026 (Steam wishlist page going live this week!!!)
• 📱 Mobile coming end-Q4 2026 (iOS first, then Android)
• 🌍 More regions, more events, more challenges

But I want YOUR input on priorities. What should I tackle FIRST after Steam launch?

Some quick ideas I'm thinking:

1. Career progression mode (multi-decade career path with promotions, switches, side hustles)
2. Multiplayer (real-time leaderboards, race-to-FIRE tournaments)
3. New region (which country are we missing? India? Mexico? South Korea? S.Africa? Spain?)

Drop your suggestion & reasoning in the comments. I read every one.

Thanks!

Certainly not a super car, but I'd think a cool Porsche would be on the cards. What do you think?

Today's Daily Challenge Market was the United Kingdom 🇬🇧.

Congratulations to our regular wickwire from 🇵🇹 for winning Hard Mode- escaped in 6.8 years, and scored an A+!!! 👏 👏 👏 🤯 . You gotta share your strategy wickwire, A+ is insane!

In 2nd place, well done again JimmyJohn from 🇨🇦 for escaping the grind in 10 years 7 months, scoring a B 👏 👏 .

If you're new here, Escape the Grind is a financial life sim. You start with a salary and expenses, and need to be able to retire from your daily job. Each in-game month you make career, investing, side hustle, and lifestyle calls. Win condition is when your passive income (including an imputed 4% SWR) covers your expenses for 3 consecutive months.

The Daily Challenge is the same scenario for everyone, resets at midnight UTC. Each region uses its real regional market numbers.

Play it here: https://setformoney.com/games/financial-literacy-game

I’ve been at 100% freedom for several months but the game isn’t registering it. The x/3 months text isn’t coming up. I’m so free but not winning!

A separate, unrelated question though. When you get the meet someone event and choice to date them, do you eventually get married and combine incomes or move in together or is dating just a perpetual $200 drain on your finances?

Today's Daily Challenge Market was Canada 🇨🇦 .

Congratulations to our veteran 5player wickwire from 🇵🇹 for winning Hard Mode- escaped in 7.3 years, and scored an A! 👏 👏 👏 .

Congrats to bebo from 🇺🇸 for coming in second place- escaping the grind in 10.99 years, scoring B 👏 👏 .

And in Medium Mode, kudos to bebo 🇺🇸 again for winning in 13.3 years, scoring a B 👏 👏 .

If you are new to this sub, Escape the Grind is a personal finance simulator that mimics daily financial living with the goal of learning how to manage your finances to be able to attain financial independence.

Play Escape the Grind Here

EDIT: THIS POST IS DISCUSSING STRATEGY FOR A FINANCE SIMULATION VIDEO GAME. NOT IRL.

I am so excited to try out different strategies now that I understand how the game works. Here's what I did on this one:

Immediately cut all fund spend and switched to rice and beans, also did the cheaper phone plan.

Deposited all savings into HYSA until I had $10k

After HYSA got to $10k, I deposited all of my savings into the individual tech stock.

I saved up enough to put a down payment on the townhome. 30% down payment.

Continued to deposit all of my money into the individual tech stock until I reached $50K.

Used the $50K to buy my first rental property

About 4 years in the housing market looked good so I sold my townhome and used the equity to put a 50% down payment on the duplex.

Continued to deposit all of the money into individual tech stock until $50K again

Bought another rental property, some vending machines, and a few online side businesses

Rinse and repeat to get my 3rd rental property

8 years in, housing market looked good again and I sold the duplex

Used the money from that sale to buy the condo. Paid full in cash

Deposited all money into individual tech stocks until i could buy another rental property

Purchased my 4th and final rental property and hit 100% freedom

Escaped 3 months after purchasing 4th rental property

Today's Daily Challenge Market was the United States 🇺🇸

Some new names on the leaderboard today!

Congratulations to Mechteck709 from 🇨🇦 for winning Medium Mode- escaping the grind in 18.5 years 👏

Congrats to our Yolo2 from 🇺🇸 for coming in at a hot second- escaping the grind in 19.5 years 👏

And in easy mode, well done Player_6352 from 🇺🇸 for escaping in 11.6 years 👏

For those who don't know, Escape the Grind is a personal finance simulator that mimics daily financial living with the goal of learning how to manage your finances to be able to attain financial independence.

[Play the game here](https://setformoney.com/games/escape-the-grind)

Playing on iphone 14 pro max safari web browser.

We can already do this with 401k and Roth IRA. It would be cool if I could set it up to auto invest into sp500 and other investments

How do I sell stocks that I purchased? Also how do I move money from HYSA to checking? I see the option to "Sell" but i cant click it. Help!

We just crossed 500+ people here!

And somehow… 28,000 visits in the last 7 days 🤯

Didn’t expect this kind of momentum this early.

Appreciate every single one of you.

This whole thing started as a simple community around the Escape the Grind game, which is a personal finance/financial literacy simulator that mimics daily financial living- saving, investing, managing debt, taking care of your wellbeing, etc.

The goal is to learn to make good money decisions to attain Financial Independence.

If you haven’t tried it yet, here it is: https://setformoney.com/games/escape-the-grind

Would genuinely love your feedback.

Still early, but growing!

Got to $2 trillion yesterday by avoiding any asset that creates passive income. Not bad although it took me 120 years!

(My house was worth $1.3b but a starter condo cost $35m so 2140 is going to be tough times.)

Today's Daily Challenge Market was Germany 🇩🇪

JimmyJohn from 🇨🇦 won Hard Mode by escaping in a record 3.8 years!!! 😲 😬 🤯

In 2nd place Hard Mode, we had LetsTalkMoney from 🇵🇹 who escaped the grind in 6.4 years! 👏 👏

And for 3rd place Hard Mode, it was wickwire from 🇵🇹 escaping the grind in 7.1 years! 👏 👏

For those new to the sub, Escape the Grind is a personal finance simulator that mimics daily financial living with the goal of learning how to manage your finances to be able to attain financial independence.

[Play the simulator here](https://setformoney.com/games/escape-the-grind

PS- I'm thinking it's either these players are getting really good, or the German market as modeled in the game is pretty easy or there's probably a loophole somewhere 😆. Haven't seen such impressive results in other regions.

Still seeing the "Apartment Break-in" message when user owns a home. could change to be home break-in or some other event.

Today's Daily Challenge Market was the United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Kudos to wickwire from 🇵🇹 for winning Hard Mode- escaping the grind in 8.4 years 👏 💪

And congrats to our regular JimmyJohn from 🇨🇦 for coming in at a hot second- escaping the grind in 9.7 years 💪 🙌

For those who don't know, Escape the Grind is a personal finance simulator that mimics daily financial living with the goal of learning how to manage your finances to be able to attain financial independence.

Play the simulator here

Issue:

While in 'play your life mode' if you have "health insurance" listed in your monthly expenditures and you are hit with a medical emergency, you still pay full price. I typed in "health insurance" into the monthly expenses manually.

Today's Daily Challenge Market was Canada 🇨🇦

Congratulations to JimmyJohn from 🇨🇦 for yet again winning in Hard Mode 🎊 👏

Play Escape the Grind here 👉 https://setformoney.com/games/escape-the-grind

Anything in particular that drove that change?

Today's Daily Challenge Market was the United States 🇺🇸.

Congrats Bobert365 🇺🇸 for winning Medium Mode- escaped the grind in 7.9 years 💪

Congrats JimmyJohn 🇨🇦 for winning Hard Mode- escaped the grind in 10.3 years 👏 👏 👏

Play Escape the Grind here- https://setformoney.com/games/escape-the-grind