By Jess Santacroce
Writer/Editor: The 315
In the June 6, 2026 episode of the new CNN show “American On Purpose,” host Craig Ferguson and a co-host illustrated American capitalism by starting with a penny and seeing how much money they could raise from the penny. If that looked vaguely familiar, you probably saw it on YouTube.
The penny challenge was invented by Christian YouTuber Ryan Trahan. From 2017 to 2022, Trahan designed and executed a series of social experiments where he started with a penny, set a goal, set a time limit, and set some rules for the challenge. Some of them doubled as fundraisers, including raising funds for Feeding America. Nearly all of them succeeded, though Trahan did fail to turn a penny into a house for a subscriber. He did succeed in getting a house, but it was not suitable to move someone into. The video’s sponsor stepped in and provided a home to donate to the fan, so he was still able to use the challenge to serve someone. Things just didn’t go exactly as he’d originally planned.
Those who don’t watch YouTube, but do read The 315 may have seen the penny challenge duplicated on a previous version of the magazine last year. For my first penny challenge, I chose new hair and makeup for me, simply because that was the absolute least important thing I could think of. If I failed, I didn’t want to cause any real problems. That challenge went very well. I don’t do much in terms of beauty rituals and cosmetics, but the few items I did want, I got without paying any of my own money.
I have also done fundraising challenges that failed. One was going to be a sort of revamp of the 315’s original challenge with an added matching grant for someone else, but instead of a penny challenge, I challenged myself to get something free, then sell that, purchase, and resell until I earned the money. There was not enough interest in it to even sell that first item, so I canceled that project and moved on to other writing.
But if these types of challenges don’t even work perfectly all the time for their inventor, I can’t give up when it doesn’t work out for me one time. Penny challenges for 2026 are back.
I decided to start with a revamp of last year’s challenge as a practice run.
This year,“summer glow up” videos are full of shower routines featuring seven or eight products beyond the basic body soap, shampoo, and deodorant, five to seven step skincare routines, hair extensions, salon hair colors that take hours, four-step at home hair styling routines, and “quick” makeup looks that call for ten products. And those are the simple ones that only cost a few hundred dollars. People who are really into “glowing up” their looks go in for questionable procedures that total up to nearly twenty-thousand dollars.
Even if I wanted to do that, and could raise that much money that fast, it would not have the desired effect on me. If I used all those body scrubs and body oils, I’d be so oily and itchy I’d need to turn right back around and wash again, which is pretty much what happens anytime I try using any skincare products. I can’t even keep sunscreen on my face and arms all day. I have to wash it off when I come back inside. My version of an “everything shower” is using one fragrance product, one scented body lotion, perfume, or body spray after I take a basic shower.. Long and straight is my most flattering hair, which is fortunate since that’s all my hair does without breaking off. I used to change the shade of red when I felt like looking a little different for a while, but since suffering a head injury in March of this year, I’m staying away from chemical hair colors. As for makeup, people ask me if I’m “all made up” when I have on mascara and eyeliner, sometimes lipstick or gloss. Anything else, and any more, and I start looking like a cartoon.
My “summer glow up” would consist of a haircut to trim and shape up my hair, a hair treatment mask that deposited color that I could use whenever I felt like a little change, a new fragrance, mascara, three shades of eyeliner, two lipsticks, and two lip glosses. I might try one or two skincare products if I could find some that actually worked on me.
Just to go a little beyond what I’ve already done, to make it a little different, I added anything I wanted to eat or drink on the day(s) I leave the house to buy anything from the store or get a haircut, a sort of spa day for a penny.
As minimal as that sounds compared to today’s trends, the products alone could total hundreds of dollars depending on the brands chosen. A single tube of Charlotte Tilbury lipstick is $37 and single tubes of mascara at Sephora can go up to $40. I had a penny….and about six to eight weeks before I needed to start a major writing project for my main writing client, two entire college writing courses for Utica University. The first three weeks of August need to be devoted to writing the courses nearly full-time. That would give me just enough time for a three or four week practice run penny challenge and a three or four week, something more important penny challenge for the summer.
As the three-week deadline for the practice run approached, I made the decision to extend it an additional week. I had ordered a travel size of the fragrance I thought was one I tried and loved in a department store. While out to do some other shopping, I stopped in Ulta Beauty and tried it, just to make sure. I could not have been more wrong. This fragrance made me smell like I just walked into a cloud of lemon air freshener. I knew I would need to trade or sell that one, which would of course take more time. I didn’t want to give up over one misremembered fragrance name.
The challenge:
Rules:
1. All funds must either stem directly from the penny, or be something I can do without spending any money at all.
2. Not being able to drive, ride a bike, or walk far fast enough to make deliveries due to poor depth perception, a badly healed childhood surgery, and breathing issues puts me at a major disadvantage. Signing up for most delivery gig work for a single afternoon or two is not an option for me, and that is an essential part of pretty much all of these penny challenges. To accommodate for that, I can use rewards points that I already have and rewards points that I earn buying things I would ordinarily buy, such as groceries and gifts, but I still cannot buy things just to earn rewards points unless I use money that stemmed from the penny or that I raised without first investing anything at all.
3. Everything must be ethical. In the “American on Purpose” episode that originally aired June 6, host Craig Ferguson raised some of his money by forging the autograph of NYC Mayor Mamdani. In the end, he felt bad, went back to the person he scammed, confessed, and made things right. But that is not how the original penny challenge was conducted, and it is not how anything will ever be conducted in this business. I also can’t do anything that isn’t exactly underhanded, but is still wrong because it unduly burdens other people, such as making an employer think I’m taking a job for an entire summer, semester, or forever, and then walking off as soon as I raised enough money to fund my challenge.
4. Items leftover from previous penny challenges are allowed to be carried over into the next ones, as in the original penny challenges. From the 2025 challenge, I have a $5.00 Dunkin gift card, three mini Victoria’s Secret body sprays, and a pack of pens. But items must be from penny challenges. I have a burgundy suede purse, $10 credit at AVON, and a makeup bag from this year’s earlier failed challenge, but that was a resell challenge, not a penny challenge, so that cannot be used.
5. All transportation must either be for something else I’m already doing, or provided with funds from the challenge. I can count trades, sales, finding change on the ground, tasks done for quick cash, etc. as part of the challenge if I do them while I’m out shopping for groceries, on my way to work, out for dinner…..but I cannot go out specifically to do something for the penny challenge unless the funds I used to get there are from the penny challenge.
The practice run challenge began on June 15 and will end on July 14 after an original end date of July 7. There were some bumps in the road, but did I ultimately succeed again this year? And once the practice challenge ended, what was the real 2026 penny challenge for?
Find out what happened in the next edition of The 315.
Add comment
Comments