100 Envelope Challenge Printable: 12 Free Designs

The 100 envelope challenge is the one where you number a hundred envelopes, pull one out at random, and put that many dollars inside. Do it a hundred times and you have $5,050. The 100 envelope savings challenge printable below is the tracker, so you can see exactly where you are without opening an envelope or an app.

There are twelve designs on this page, because a nine year old saving pocket money and someone saving a down payment shouldn’t be handed the same sheet. Totals run from $100 to $10,100, and there are cut-out labels for real envelopes plus a no-cash log for anyone who’d rather leave the money in the bank.

What the challenge actually is

Number a hundred envelopes 1 to 100. Each day, or each week, draw one without looking. Whatever number is on it, that is how many dollars go in. Envelope 7 takes $7. Envelope 94 takes $94.

The reason it catches on is the drawing. You don’t know what you’re getting, so a boring transfer turns into a small daily event. The reason it works is plainer than that: the numbers 1 through 100 add up to $5,050, and arithmetic doesn’t negotiate.

Two things are worth knowing before you print anything.

The first is that the order is random, which means a tracker can’t pre-print a running total. Nobody can know whether your third draw is $6 or $96. So every sheet here is built to be colored in as you go, not read down in order.

The second is the one nobody mentions, so it gets its own section.

What “save $5,050 in 100 days” really costs

Almost every page about this challenge repeats the same line: save $5,050 in 100 days. It’s true, and it leaves out the part that decides whether you finish.

One hundred days is about three and a third months. To finish in that time you need:

Pace	Per week	Per month	How long it takes
1 envelope a day	$353.50	$1,537	100 days
2 envelopes a week	$101.00	$439	1 year
1 envelope a week	$50.50	$220	just under 2 years

For most households, $1,537 a month is not a savings challenge. It’s a rent payment.

It helps to know what normal looks like. The Bureau of Economic Analysis puts the personal saving rate at 3.0 percent of disposable income in July 2026, which is the share of take-home pay Americans actually hold on to. Against that, a hundred days at $1,537 a month is not a stretch goal. It is a different income.

If you start at that pace because a video said 100 days, you’ll stop somewhere around week five, and it’ll feel like your fault rather than the plan’s.

Pick the row you can actually pay. The total at the end is $5,050 in all three cases. Only the finish date moves.

How to start

1. Print one sheet. Pick the version below that matches how you want to do it. One sheet, not four.
2. Choose your pace from the table above, and write the date you are starting at the bottom of the page.
3. Decide cash or bank. Real envelopes if you like the feel of it, a transfer if you’d rather the money was safe and earning something.
4. Draw a number. Fold the labels into a jar, or close your eyes and point at the sheet. Whatever lands, that is the amount.
5. Color the envelope in and write the new total on the “saved so far” line, so you never have to add it up from scratch.
6. Put the money somewhere you don’t touch. A separate savings account with no debit card attached works well.

All 12 free designs

Every sheet is US Letter, 8.5 x 11 inches, and prints on A4 if you choose “fit to page”. All of them are light on ink.

Classic 100 Envelope Challenge

The one most people want. A hundred envelopes drawn on one page, $1 to $100, ten across, with the total printed at the top and a “saved so far” line at the bottom. Color one in each time you fill a real envelope or make a transfer.

Total $5,050 · 100 envelopes · 1 page · black and white

Download the classic tracker (PDF)

Cozy Color Version

The same hundred envelopes, shaded from cream through to clay across the sheet, so the page changes as you work down it. Still light enough to write on and still cheap to print.

Total $5,050 · 100 envelopes · 1 page · color

Download the color version (PDF)

Blush Pastel Version

The full $5,050 challenge in soft pink. Same sheet, different feel, for a bedroom wall rather than a kitchen drawer.

Total $5,050 · 100 envelopes · 1 page · blush pink

Download the blush version (PDF)

Kids Version, a dollar an envelope

The grown-up challenge asks for $100 in a single week, which isn’t something a nine year old can do. This one flattens it: every envelope holds $1, so a child saves a dollar, colors an envelope in, and a hundred of those is $100. No drawing, no guessing what they owe this week, and the row they are on tells them how far they have come.

It suits pocket money, a chore chart or birthday money, and it’s how the challenge is usually run for children.

Total $100 · $1 an envelope · 1 page · mint green

Download the kids version (PDF)

Family Goal Version

One sheet for the whole house. There’s a line across the top for what you’re all saving toward, and anyone can fill an envelope and color it in. It works well stuck on the fridge where everyone walks past it, and it gives children a way to put in 3 dollars next to an adult putting in 80.

Total $5,050 · 100 envelopes · 1 page · soft blue

Download the family version (PDF)

25 Envelope Starter

Twenty-five envelopes, nothing bigger than $25, $325 in total. It’s the one to start with if a hundred envelopes sounds like a lot to commit to, and it’s short enough to finish in a month at one a day. Children old enough to handle the arithmetic can run this one properly, drawing and all.

Total $325 · 25 envelopes · 1 page · black and white

Download the 25 envelope version (PDF)

$5 an Envelope

Every envelope holds $5, so there’s nothing to work out each time and nothing that suddenly costs $97. A hundred of them is $500. Good for teenagers with a weekend job, and for anyone who’d rather put the same amount away every time.

Total $500 · $5 an envelope · 1 page · pink

Download the $5 version (PDF)

Double It, $10,100

Every envelope is worth twice its number, so envelope 50 takes $100 and envelope 100 takes $200. The whole thing comes to $10,100. This is the version for a deposit or a wedding rather than a holiday fund, and the last few envelopes are genuinely large, so read the pacing table again before you print it.

Total $10,100 · 100 envelopes · 1 page · black and white

Download the $10,100 version (PDF)

50 Envelope Half Challenge

Same idea, half the size. Envelopes 1 to 50, which comes to $1,275, and the biggest single draw is $50 instead of $100. This is the one to pick if the full version looks like a number you can’t reach, or if you want to finish something before committing to the long one.

Total $1,275 · 50 envelopes · 1 page · black and white

Download the 50 envelope version (PDF)

Envelope Labels 1 to 100

If you’re using real envelopes, these save you writing a hundred numbers by hand. Twenty-eight labels to a page across four pages, sized to cut out and stick on. They also work folded up in a jar as the thing you draw from.

100 labels · 4 pages · cut along the lines

Download the envelope labels (PDF)

No-Cash Transfer Log

For doing the whole thing from your banking app. A hundred rows with room for the date, which envelope number you drew, the amount, and your running total. Nothing is pre-filled, because in a random draw nobody knows what’s coming next.

100 rows · 2 pages · no cash needed

Download the transfer log (PDF)

Write Your Own Amounts

A hundred blank slots where the amounts would be, fifty to a page. Set your own, whether that’s $5 in every envelope or a mix that follows your paychecks. You can type into this one in any PDF reader, or print it and fill it in by hand.

100 slots · 2 pages · typeable PDF

Download the write-your-own (PDF)

Which one is for you

If this is you	Print this	Total
Doing it yourself, want it cheap to print	Classic	$5,050
You want it to look like something	Cozy color or blush	$5,050
A child saving pocket money	Kids version	$100
A teenager with a weekend job	$5 an envelope	$500
The whole household, one goal	Family version	$5,050
A hundred envelopes sounds like a lot	25 envelope starter	$325
$100 in a week is out of reach	50 envelope	$1,275
Saving for a deposit, not a vacation	Double it	$10,100
You’re using real envelopes	Classic plus the labels	$5,050
You never carry cash	Transfer log	$5,050
Your pay is irregular	Write your own	you choose

Compare all 12

Design	Total	Biggest envelope	Pages	Color
Classic	$5,050	$100	1	Black and white
Cozy color	$5,050	$100	1	Cream to clay
Blush pastel	$5,050	$100	1	Pink
Kids	$100	$1	1	Mint green
Family goal	$5,050	$100	1	Soft blue
25 envelope starter	$325	$25	1	Black and white
$5 an envelope	$500	$5	1	Pink
Double it	$10,100	$200	1	Black and white
50 envelope	$1,275	$50	1	Black and white
Envelope labels	None	None	4	Black and white
Transfer log	$5,050	$100	2	Black and white
Write your own	you choose	you choose	2	Black and white

Doing it without the cash

You can run this challenge without ever holding a banknote, and there’s a good argument for doing it that way.

Draw your number, open your banking app, move that many dollars into savings, and write the line down on the transfer log. The game is identical. What changes is what happens to the money in between.

Cash in a drawer isn’t insured. If your home is burgled, or there’s a fire or a flood, $5,050 in envelopes is simply gone. Money in a bank account is protected up to the FDIC limit of $250,000 per depositor, per bank, and it earns a little while it sits there. Envelopes earn nothing.

The case for real cash is that some people spend less when they can see money leaving their hands. If that’s you, use the envelopes. Just don’t leave a growing pile of them in an obvious place for a year.

If you fall behind

You will draw a $97 envelope in a bad week. Everyone does. A few things that help, none of which involve starting over:

• Put it back and draw again. There’s no rule saying a number has to be filled the day you pull it. Swap it for a smaller one and leave the big one for a better week.
• Split a big envelope. Put $50 in now and the other $47 next time. It still ends up filled.
• Do the small ones first on purpose. Fill 1 through 50 before you touch anything above it. That half is only $1,275 of the $5,050, so it’s the gentle end, and it gets you halfway through the envelopes.
• Drop to the 50 envelope version. Finishing $1,275 beats abandoning $5,050 in March.

A note before you start

These are tracking sheets, not financial advice. Whether this challenge suits you depends on your own situation, and if you’re carrying high interest debt, paying that down will usually do more for you than saving alongside it.

If you want to see how this one compares with the others, the savings challenge printables page has eleven of them side by side, the 52 week savings challenge is the slower relative of this one with a fixed order instead of a random draw, and the Christmas savings challenge printables work to a deadline if the holidays are what you are saving for.