What is the$1-to-$100 challenge?

Each day you deposit exactly one more dollar than the day before. Day 1 is a dollar. Day 2 is two. Day 3 is three. The dose is always + $1 — the size of your climb is the only choice you make up front.

Pick the short 30-day sprint and you finish at $30, with $465 set aside. The 60-day climb lands on $60, $1,830 saved. The 100-day build lands on $100, exactly $5,050 saved — the classic payoff, stretched over a quarter of a year so each step stays small enough to keep.

Same ladder, three lengths. The 60- and 100-day plans just keep climbing past day 30 using the same + $1 rule.

The $5.99 covers the basics that make a savings app actually work: bank routing, the partner account that holds your money, and the small piece of the daily nudge system that keeps the streak honest.

We charge it once, up front— before your first deposit moves, before any money leaves your account. There's nothing hidden inside it. The same $5.99 line shows up on your bank statement and on the confirmation screen, where you can see the breakdown before you confirm.

A flat fee, paid once, is the simplest model we could give a first-time saver. There is no monthly subscription, no management fee, no percentage of your deposits.

The early-exit fee is $5.99 — the same flat amount as the starting fee. The difference is when it's charged: once, at the moment you tap “end my climb and withdraw,” if you leave before your plan ends.

What you get back is every dollar you deposited, less that single $5.99. We show you the exact number — “you deposited $231, the fee is $5.99, you'll receive $225.01” — on the confirmation screen before you tap to confirm, so there are no surprises later. The fee is identical whether you stop on day 8 or day 95.

Finish your climb on day 30, 60, or 100 and you pay nothing extra. The starting fee was the only fee.

Your money stays exactly where it is. We don't pull a missed day back from your account, we don't move it, and we certainly don't charge a missed-day fee.

What does change is small: your visible streak counter resets to zero. Because the deposit rule is always + $1 from yesterday, your next deposit still steps up by only one dollar — we don't ask you to “make it up” with a $2 jump. The ladder keeps its rhythm; you just start a fresh streak from where you are.

Most users who skip a day pick the climb back up within the same week.

Round-up apps like Qapital and Acorns are excellent at what they do: small automatic transfers, often into a diversified investment portfolio, with light goals tucked on top. They're tools for people who already know the language of saving.

Uncle Paul is built for the user who doesn't. We pick one concrete, finite arc with a satisfying round-number end: 100 days, + $1 each day, finish at $100. You see every step before it happens. You know the exact total on day one. There's no portfolio to pick, no ETF acronym to learn, no “did it grow this month?” mystery — just a ladder you can finish.

Different goal: a habit you can finish, not a balance you watch. Different surface: a single climb, not a dashboard of micro-savings.