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Watch trailer on Steam ↗Escape the Grind
SetForMoney Studios · Published by SetForMoney Studios
9 user reviews — 89% positive (9 reviews) · 41 achievements
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
Can you retire before 65? A financial life sim across 11 real economies with authentic salaries, housing, and investment products. A rough stretch buries you in debt. A smart run retires you at 38! And you can plug in your own real numbers too.
£11.75
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Price history
Indie, Simulation, Strategy, Casual · 2026 · More £5 - £15 games
About this game
CAN YOU BUILD ENOUGH PASSIVE INCOME TO QUIT THE 9-TO-5?
You just graduated. You have a salary, a pile of bills, and zero savings. Every month you make the calls that shape the next 40 years of your life: pay down debt or invest? Buy a house or keep renting? Take the promotion or start the side hustle? Max the retirement account or live a little?
A rough stretch buries you in debt. A smart run retires you at 38.
Escape the Grind is a personal finance simulator built on real economic data. Not a tycoon game with fake money. Not a spreadsheet dressed in pixel art. A grounded simulation of the money choices most people actually face, and what happens when you get them right.
11 REAL-WORLD ECONOMIES
Every region is built from researched salary data, real housing prices, authentic financial products, and local life events. No reskins. No scaled US numbers. Real data from real countries.
United States - 401(k), Roth IRA, S&P 500, student loans, medical debt
United Kingdom - ISA, SIPP, FTSE 100, council tax, Help to Buy
Canada - TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, TSX, CMHC mortgages, OSAP
Australia - Super, HECS-HELP, ASX 200, negative gearing, franking credits
Germany - Riester-Rente, Sparerpauschbetrag, DAX, Minijob, Kurzarbeit
Japan - iDeCo, NISA, Nikkei 225, NHI, BOJ interest rates
Brazil - Tesouro Direto, FGTS, Bovespa, INSS, 13th salary
Kenya - M-Pesa, SACCOs, NSE, T-Bills, shylocks
France - PEA, Livret A, Assurance Vie, PER, CAC 40
Portugal - PPR, Certificados de Aforro, PSI 20, IRS deductions
Mexico - AFORE, CETES, S&P/BMV IPC, INFONAVIT, Meses Sin Intereses
Each region is an entirely different game. The UK mortgage system plays nothing like Canadian CMHC loans. Kenyan M-Pesa savings play nothing like Australian negative gearing. Play all eleven to see how the world actually works with money.
KEY FEATURES
Three difficulty levels - Easy (middle class), Medium (working class), Hard (poverty line). Hard mode teaches you what zero financial margin actually feels like.
Play Your Life Mode - Input your real salary, debts, and expenses. Play YOUR financial life and see when YOU could retire. After you escape the grind, enter Big Leagues Mode to chase your exact net worth target.
Real financial products - Index funds, bonds, REITs, rental properties, side businesses, crypto. Each with historically accurate returns and real risk.
200+ life events - Market crashes, medical emergencies, job offers, surprise expenses, windfalls. Region-specific events you won't see anywhere else: Japanese karoshi warnings, Australian bushfires, Kenyan shylocks, French transport strikes, Mexican tandas.
Multiple paths to freedom - Retire through passive income, real estate empire, aggressive investing, or frugal living. No single correct strategy.
Daily Challenge - Same scenario worldwide, daily leaderboard. Compare your strategy against thousands of players.
Challenge a Friend - Share a link. Same starting conditions, different choices. Who retires first?
7 native language UIs - Full UI in English, Japanese, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, and Mexican Spanish. Region-authentic financial terms and cultural references, not just translated text.
REAL RETIREMENT MATH
The 4% rule - modeled correctly, with real sequence-of-returns risk
Dollar-cost averaging - with historical return distributions so your index fund behaves like real market history
Bitcoin halving cycles - real 48-month schedule with diminishing returns
Country-specific tax mechanics - franking credits, Sparerpauschbetrag, FGTS, PPR deductions, all modeled to match real tax law
Mortgage amortization - refinance, early payoff, PMI/LMI/CMHC insurance, all accurate
Lifestyle inflation - the thing most people don't notice catching up to them
If you know FIRE math, this'll feel familiar. If you don't, you'll pick it up by playing, not by reading.
WHAT'S IN THE STEAM VERSION
All 11 economies with all 3 difficulty levels + Play Your Life Mode
Cloud saves - play across PC, laptop, Steam Deck, never lose a playthrough
40+ Steam achievements - from "First Million" to "Akiya Hero" to "Escaped the Grind in the United States"
Global leaderboards - fastest retirement, highest net worth, best playthroughs per region
Offline play - no internet required once installed
Family Sharing - share the game with your household through Steam
Free updates forever - new countries, new mechanics, new events added regularly
BUILT BY A SOLO DEVELOPER
Escape the Grind is built by one developer born in Kenya, now based in New York, who grew up watching people get trapped by predatory lending and financial illiteracy.
He originally built it for his 10-year-old daughter. He wanted her to understand money in a fun way before money becomes a problem. She watches her net worth grow, panics when the market crashes, celebrates when she buys her first house.
Then he shared it online. It went viral. #1 on r/leanfire, r/passive_income, and r/CanadaPersonalFinance. 105,000 views in under two weeks. Experienced investors said the numbers feel accurate. So he brought it to the world. 11 countries. 6 languages. Real data from every region.
No publisher. No committee. No ads. Just one person trying to build a money game that teaches what most schools won't.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 10 or later
- Processor: Any dual-core processor
- Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated graphics
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Supported Languages
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Patch 1.2.2 - Mortgages & House prices
Play Your Life - A mortgage you already own is now charged as a monthly bill. Previous bug was it was never deducted, so it wrongly paid itself off. - Interest rates now apply correctly. Previous bug was a mortgage entered at 6% was running at 0.06% - Large amounts are grouped as you type depending on your country's format- basically number separators like a comma for every "thousands". Japan - House prices, rent and rental income now use the researched Japanese figures. Homes were selling for around two thirds of their real price All markets - Mortgages use each country's usual term/period instead of 30 years. Japan has 35, Kenya has 15, Mexico 20, etc. Thanks to Woofel for identifying the mortgage bugs.Read full article on Community Announcements (delictodelight)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch 1.2.1 - Play Your Life & Auto-invest Fix
Play Your Life: - Your entered numbers are used exactly as typed. Every market except the US was converting them a second time, so a 300,000 yen salary started you on 21,000,000. Fixed! - The summary screen before month 1 was scaling those figures again. Fixed! - Going back from that screen could switch your market. Fixed! Auto-invest: - Setting a recurring investment back to zero (after you've had it) left its line on the Bills Due screen. Nothing was ever deducted, the screen was just still showing it. Fixed! Thanks to otukaretarau and TheDecider, who reported these.Read full article on Community Announcements (delictodelight)Patch NotesOfficial
Update 1.2.0: Auto-Invest
🔁 New Feature: Auto-InvestPlayers kept asking: if you can already set up a monthly 401(k) contribution, why not an index fund? Now you can...finally!How it works- Locate the 🔁 row on any savings or investment asset, enter your desired amount, and select Set. The game will automatically purchase that asset every month moving forward without requiring any manual clicks.It cannot put you in debt- Auto-Invest only utilizes the cash left over after your monthly bills are paid. If funds are tight and the money isn't there, the game will simply skip the purchase and notify you on the Bills Due screen. It will never borrow money, cause an overdraw, or force you into debt. It simply resumes the following month if you have enough cash.Dollar-Cost Averaging- The game automatically buys at the current month's asset price. When the market drops, your fixed amount buys more shares; when prices are high, it buys fewer.Supported assets include: Savings, bonds, index funds, dividend stocks, REITs, crypto, gold, P2P lending, and similar region-specific products.🛠️ Balance Fixes & Bug PatchesFranceFixed an issue with the Plan Épargne Logement (PEL). It now correctly grants the exact loan rights promised. The interest rate locks on the day of opening, and the maximum borrow amount is earned from accrued interest (capped at €92,000). Early withdrawal will now correctly result in a loss of these rights, mirroring the real-world financial product.Germany & FranceFixed a bug where mortgage rates would erroneously climb during central bank rate hikes. Players in Germany and France will no longer be forced into variable-rate mortgages, which rarely exist in those markets.Deeply appreciate all the incredible feedback you're sharing! Keep em coming & don't forget to leave a review.With thanks,NickRead full article on Community Announcements (delictodelight)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch 1.1.1- Shipping fixes to last udpate
Small follow-up to yesterday's update. Thanks to Adrian Joo and TheDecider for catching them. • Fixed a crash when selling a retirement or tax-free savings account that had grown. This affected every market, including Roth IRA, ISA, TFSA, NISA, Riester, Assurance Vie, Previdência and PPR. • Fixed a crash when pressing Back on a Play Your Life briefing screen. • Fixed the crash screen's own "Reload and resume" button, which did nothing at all • Tooltip amounts no longer scale twice. Australia's FCS deposit guarantee, Brazil's FGC ceiling, the MEI revenue limit and the Tesouro minimum were all being shown inflated. They now read at their real values. • The retirement contribution label now respects the employer match cap, so it no longer promises more than your paycheck actually pays. • First-home savings accounts now count toward whether a house shows as affordable, and the purchase breakdown shows how much the account released. If you were mid-run when one of these hit you, your save should be fine. Reload and resume now works.Read full article on Community Announcements (delictodelight)Patch NotesOfficial
Launch-Week Feedback Update
Many thanks to everyone that has provided feedback that went into this update, led by TheDecider & kony74!Here is what changed: Every market now has its own health systemIf you played the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Kenya, Mexico or Japan, you could not buy or raise health insurance at all.That is now built per country. Britain has the NHS with private top-up. Canada has Medicare with extended benefits. Australia has Medicare, and if you earn above the threshold with no private cover, you now pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge, just like you would in real life. France has the Sécu with a mutuelle on top. Kenya has SHA. Each one should now use its real name and its real monthly cost. Cutting expenses actually does something nowEvery expense cut is now a percentage of what you actually pay, so it works at any income, in any currency. There is also a new transport cut for scenarios where you have no car, which previously had no way to reduce that line at all. Student loans that behave like student loansThe UK student loan was charging 8.7% with a payment that did not cover the interest, so the balance grew forever with no way out. It is now income-contingent just like IRL: 9% of what you earn above the threshold, nothing below it, and the balance is written off after thirty years. Australia's HECS-HELP works the same way now with no write-off.Retirement and first homesCanada's RRSP was handing out a full employer match from month one regardless of what you contributed. It now respects the 18% contribution room and a realistic employer cap. Germany's Bausparvertrag and France's PEL were coming out of your salary before you ever saw it, and then quietly getting sold instead of applied when you bought a home. Both now come out at the bill stage and pay into the purchase. The UK Lifetime ISA bonus, the Canadian FHSA and the Japanese NISA should now all work properly too. Also fixed UK ISA, Canadian TFSA and Japanese NISA now pay out tax-free like...Read full article on Community Announcements (delictodelight)
