Piggy Pal wins Rep. Pat Fallon’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Texas’s Fourth District

When asked what inspired the creation of Piggy Pal, the students said, “Our main inspiration for this app was the excessive spending that most teens participate in while in school. It is very common to see our friends and classmates spend all of the money that they get on new trends and eating out, which often leads to the development of extremely unhealthy spending habits. Because we live in such a privileged area, most kids do not consider how these habits could affect their relationships with their personal finances once they have to begin supporting themselves and their families. 

“As a result, my partner and I began to research just how large this problem was. Through our research, we discovered that low financial literacy plagued students from middle school to college all over the country. As a result, we concluded that there was a failure in the education system to properly teach kids about financial responsibility and literacy. To combat this, we wanted to create a tool that would allow students of all ages to understand the importance of saving money and achieving financial goals. This idea evolved into the budgeting side of the app, which shows users how their income should be divided in order to afford fixed/necessary expenses, save for future goals, and still be able to shop for fun. Although not all of the categories apply to teenagers directly, they provide users with an idea about how to properly balance a budget as an adult. 

“The second key component of our app is our tax calculator, which was inspired by the lack of education that high school students receive on the subject. Our tax calculator provides a simple, user-friendly introduction to calculating and paying taxes. This tool is meant to show students how taxes are calculated depending on both personal (where you live and your marriage status) and financial (income and tax credits) factors that are unique to each individual. Our hope is that this app will both provide students with a tool with which they can responsibly take control of their finances, and enable them to make realistic financial goals to set themselves up for the future.”