Thirty days. One salary. A month with other ideas.
Here is the whole game: your salary lands, the rent and bills leave before you've had a coffee, and then you have to get one ordinary British month to day 30 without the wheels coming off. The boiler has other plans. So does the car, the cat, the rail network, your best mate's hen do and — in week three, when you're tired and the balance is thin — a text message offering you £300 in fifteen minutes.
Survive the Month is a budgeting survival game in the tradition of SPENT and the FT's Uber Game, rebuilt for a UK payslip. Play on one of three typical take-home pays, or type in your own salary: your monthly budget is worked out by the very same engine as MiniBreak Money's UK Tax Calculator, Scotland and all, so the month you play is priced off your real pay. The standing costs — rent, council tax, energy, travel — are modelled on typical 2026 UK figures, and London mode reprices everything the way London does.
There are three ways to lose: breach your £250 overdraft, collect two strikes at work, or burn your morale down to zero and quit in a blaze of glory. There are also three offers that only appear when you're in the red — a payday loan, a buy-now-pay-later button, a pre-approved credit card — each with its real cost written in plain sight and scheduled to land whether you remember it or not. Sometimes taking one is the only way through. That's not a bug; it's the most honest money lesson the game has.
Reach day 30 and you'll get a month report: your final balance, your biggest save, your biggest blow, and a share card to challenge your friends with. Then, if you're feeling brave, the real thing: the Rent Affordability Calculator will tell you what your actual pay can actually carry.
Pick a salary — one of three typical UK take-home pays, or type in your own. Payday lands, rent and bills leave immediately, and then you get 30 days of very British financial curveballs: broken boilers, rail strikes, hen dos, vet bills and brown envelopes from HMRC. Every day you make a choice that costs money, morale or your manager's patience. Reach day 30 without breaching your £250 overdraft, collecting two job strikes or burning your morale to zero.
Yes. The standing costs — rent, council tax, energy, travel — are modelled on typical UK figures for 2026, and the events are priced like real life: an MOT repair in the hundreds, an NHS dental charge, a replacement washing machine. London mode reprices the month the way London does. It is a game, not a survey, but the numbers are honest.
If you type your own salary, your monthly take-home is worked out by the exact same calculation engine as MiniBreak Money's UK Tax Calculator — 2026/27 income tax and National Insurance, including the Scottish bands if you pick Scotland. The figure it shows is the calculator's figure to the penny; the game then plays in whole pounds. The three quick-start tiers are typical take-home pays for roughly £22k, £30k and £45k salaries.
When your balance goes into the red, offers start arriving: a payday loan, a buy-now-pay-later checkout button, a pre-approved credit card. Their real costs are written in plain sight — the payday loan's £390 repayment lands on day 30 whether you remember it or not. Accepting is sometimes the only way through, and that's the point: the game teaches the price of expensive credit by letting you feel it, not by lecturing you.
No. It's entertainment with an educational streak, built by MiniBreak Money. Nothing in the game is advice about your actual money. If you want your real numbers, the free UK Tax Calculator and Rent Affordability Calculator on MiniBreak Money work them out properly — and for decisions that matter, a regulated adviser beats a browser game every time.
Completely free, in your browser, with no downloads and no accounts. Your salary and choices never leave your device — the calculations happen locally, and the only thing saved is your best results, in your own browser. Clear your browser data and even those are gone.
