April 23, 2003
The Philadelphia Inquirer
by Jeff Gelles

How much do you save each month?

Most of us can probably answer with a glib "not enough," especially if we're contemplating bills for college tuition or thinking wistfully about retirement.

But a substantial number of people - and not just those at the bottom of the income ladder - save little or nothing. As a result, they close themselves out of opportunities that require savings, such as buying a house, and put themselves at continual financial risk.

That's the problem that a new program called Philadelphia Saves and its national counterpart, America Saves, aim to address.

The programs have a practical bent that goes beyond the usual "financial literacy" campaign. They ask participants to set realistic goals, and provide help with sticking to them.

For some, the goal may be saving for a home or joining a work-related retirement savings plan. For others, it may start with paying off high-interest debt, which can drag anybody down.

Whatever the goal, the programs offer help in reaching it, including free counseling from volunteer "wealth-building coaches" and access to specially designed savings accounts at participating banks.

I first told you about these programs almost a year ago when local planning was getting under way. Philadelphia Saves was launched last week at an event cosponsored by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Delaware Valley, and PNC Bank.

Now that you can participate - or benefit indirectly from their smart messages - it seems like a good time for an update.

America Saves is the brainchild of Stephen Brobeck, who heads the Consumer Federation of America. In that role, he has watched as easy credit and poor savings habits have led more and more people down a path that leads nowhere, except to statistics such as last year's record 1.5 million personal bankruptcies.

Brobeck isn't Pollyannish. His organization has led the fight against a bankruptcy overhaul, pushed by the financial industry, that consumer advocates view as punitive to those who need bankruptcy's protection, typically because of major setbacks such as divorce, job loss or serious illness.

But he realizes that some portion of those who fall into financial holes could have avoided them if they had modest savings to rely on. The puzzle was how to get those people to become savers.

With a Ford Foundation grant and research from Swarthmore economist John Caskey, Brobeck concluded that some of the barriers were social and psychological.

America Saves' goal is to break down some of those barriers with what is known as a social-marketing campaign, akin to the public-health campaigns that have reduced drunken driving or encouraged safer sex.

Nationally, about 9,000 people have joined, through the half-dozen local programs already operating or the national America Saves Web site (www.americasaves.org), which allows people to join directly. You can also learn there about Black America Saves, a version of the program cosponsored by Black Entertainment Television.

Philadelphia Saves hopes to market itself through motivational workshops sponsored by employers, community groups and the like.

To arrange a workshop, or to join Philadelphia Saves directly, call 215-563-7858 or pick up a brochure at a participating bank. So far, they include PNC, Beneficial Savings, Commerce, First Union, Republic First, and several smaller institutions.

What kinds of deals are they offering?

Commerce's Philadelphia Saves account is fee-free, and offers other services such as an ATM card. So does PNC's account, though it's fee-free only for a year if you don't maintain a $300 balance - not a big problem if you become a serious saver, says PNC vice president Shirlyn Swann, who is coordinating the program.

Joining the program makes special sense if you've always had trouble saving and planning. But anyone can benefit from the kind of practical advice it offers, such as estimates of how much you could set aside each month from simple lifestyle adjustments - the kind you can easily calculate on your own, but may not want to:

Bring lunch to work: $60 savings.
Coffee instead of cappuccino: $40.
Eat out two fewer times: $30.
Drop premium cable TV: $20.

I like the program for the same reason it's lauded by Dede Myers, vice president at the Philadelphia Fed: "It fights the image of 'Buy buy buy,' 'Borrow borrow borrow.' "

Anyone who can replace that, just a little, with "Save save save" will have a better chance of sleeping easy at night, not worried so much about facing tomorrow's bills.