Prize-Linked Savings: A Fun Way to Actually Save (2026)

Saving money is simple. You set some aside, you leave it alone, you do it again. The problem is that it feels boring, and a few dollars of interest doesn’t motivate anyone, so most of us keep putting it off. Attaching a prize to saving changes that math, because suddenly there’s something to look forward to. Here’s the behavioural reason a prize works when interest doesn’t, and how to make saving actually fun and stick.

Why is saving so hard?

Saving is hard because it asks you to give up something you can feel now for a payoff you might use years from now, and the brain is wired to weight the now more heavily. Behavioural economists call this present bias. The coffee, the impulse buy, the upgrade all feel real today. A higher balance in a year feels abstract, so spending tends to win.

Most Canadians are losing that tug-of-war right now. The household saving rate was just 3.5% in the first quarter of 2026, the lowest since early 2024, according to Statistics Canada (opens in a new tab). The usual fix, a savings account, struggles against present bias because the reward is too small to feel. On $200 set aside at 1.5 percent, you earn about $3 in a year. That’s real money, but $3 is no match for the very real pull of spending the $200 today. The habit has nothing exciting to offer in return, so it doesn’t stick.

Two more things make it harder than it should be. Saving is invisible: a savings balance sits in another account where you rarely look, so there’s no moment of reward and nothing to keep you coming back. And when saving means a manual transfer you have to decide on every payday, every transfer is one more chance to skip it, talk yourself out of it, or just forget. Boring, invisible, and effortful is a bad combination for any habit. The fix is to flip all three.

Why does a prize make people save when interest doesn’t?

A prize works because the reward is finally big enough to care about. Same $200, same year. Three dollars of interest is easy to ignore. Put a chance at a prize worth thousands on that same balance, and saving suddenly feels like it could change something. That’s a reward you would actually want.

It also fixes the invisible problem. A prize draw gives saving a recurring moment, a reason to check in and see where you stand, instead of money that just sits somewhere you never look. That regular check-in is most of why the habit takes hold. You’re no longer waiting years to feel anything from your savings. There’s a payoff this week, even in the weeks you don’t win, because each one is a small reminder that the habit is alive.

This isn’t a hunch. Prize-linked savings has a long track record. UK Premium Bonds have run since 1956 and are still held by tens of millions of people, and the US Save to Win program pulled in nearly 12,000 accounts in under a year, most from people who had never kept long-term savings before. The pattern repeats: remove the downside, add a prize, and people who weren’t saving start. For the full model, the history, and why it’s legal in Canada, see our complete guide to prize-linked savings in Canada.

How to make saving actually fun (and stick)

You don’t need willpower to save. You need a setup that does the work for you and gives the habit a payoff you can feel. Willpower runs out. A good system and a real reward keep going. Here are the tactics that make saving stick, roughly in the order worth trying them:

• Automate it, and pay yourself first. Set up an automatic transfer to savings on payday, so it goes out before the rest of the paycheque does. When saving happens by default, you save before you can talk yourself out of it, and you remove the friction of deciding every single time. Most banks let you schedule a recurring transfer in a couple of taps.
• Start tiny so it’s painless. Five or ten dollars a week you won’t miss beats fifty dollars you abandon by month two. A small amount you keep up compounds into a real habit, and the goal at the start is the habit, not the amount. You can raise it later, once saving is automatic and you stop noticing it.
• Make it visual with a goal. Saving toward a named thing you can picture, a trip, a car, a cushion for emergencies, beats saving toward a faceless balance. A goal you can see gives the abstract future something concrete to pull for, and watching it get closer is its own small reward each time you check.
• Gamify it with a streak. Tracking weeks in a row turns saving into a small game you don’t want to break, and not wanting to lose the streak is often a stronger pull than the saving itself. Round-up tools that sweep your spare change into savings work the same way, by making each deposit effortless and a little satisfying.
• Add a prize-linked layer. Put a real reward on top of the habit. A chance to win on the money you save gives every week a payoff you can feel, which is the piece a plain savings account is missing. It’s the difference between saving because you should and saving because you want to see what happens next.

How Lodavo makes saving fun

Lodavo rewards your saving with free tickets for a weekly cash draw. There’s no new account and no deposit. You connect the Canadian bank account you already have, read-only through Plaid (opens in a new tab), and every $25 you keep saved earns you a ticket in a free weekly draw worth up to $10,000, with a guaranteed prize of at least $100 going to a user every week. The live draw card on this page shows this week’s numbers, and you can browse past results under winning numbers.

Your savings keep earning whatever interest they already earn, and Lodavo can never withdraw, move, or charge a cent. Lodavo is Canada’s first prize-linked savings app, it’s free on iOS and Android, and it’s built to make saving feel worth doing this week. If you’re weighing it against a plain account, see how the two stack up in traditional savings vs prize-linked savings, or read whether prize-linked savings is gambling if that’s the question on your mind. Then download Lodavo free and find out what saving feels like when there’s a prize at the end of the week.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.