It’s easy enough to pay your bills automatically these days, so why shouldn’t saving money be automatic, too? That’s the basic concept behind the new Wisconsin Saves Automatic Saving Initiative.
Created by a coalition of state officials, bankers, and business professionals, Wisconsin Saves aims to encourage Wisconsinites to put their savings on autopilot. Specifically, the program educates both employees and employers about how to set up split deposits, which direct a specific dollar amount of share of a worker’s paycheck into a savings or investment account each pay period.

Such savings could be used to pay down debt, to invest for retirement, to create a college fund – or to cover the cost of an unexpected emergency.

“Many Wisconsinites experienced economic hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said  Kathy Blumenfeld, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. “Our goal with Wisconsin Saves is to make sure more residents are financially prepared for those small and large emergencies that we all know will happen from time to time.”

According to Bankrate.com, “only 39 percent of Americans could pay for an emergency expense of $1,000 from their savings account.”

It’s a timely initiative: According to Bankrate.com, the pandemic has been a reminder to Americans of the importance of saving for the unexpected. For example, a nationwide survey by Bankrate conducted in January found that more than half of Americans now have more in their emergency savings than on their credit card balances.

While that’s a positive sign, that doesn’t mean that most of us have much saved for an emergency: According to the same survey, “only 39 percent of Americans could pay for an emergency expense of $1,000 from their savings account.”

Initiatives like Wisconsin Saves are aimed to increase that percentage. According to the Wisconsin Bankers Association, “The campaign encourages small- and medium-sized employers to promote to their employees the ease and benefits of saving automatically for emergencies through split deposit. … Wisconsin Saves provides employers who sign up for the program with easy-to-use tools to help educate employees about split deposit and the importance of starting to build savings today.”

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Employers can learn more and sign up at AutoSave.WisconsinSaves.org. Find more information about building savings at americasaves.org.