With debt, low levels of savings and financial illiteracy on a roll in America, roll-reversing forces are fast-emerging, with several programs recently showcased in Baltimore.
Previewed Saturday at Baltimore Cash Campaign?s Money Power Day at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, the two-week Roll in the Dough savings and debt-reduction program of the Maryland Saves coalition seeks to reverse statewide improvidence trends with incentives for frugal figuring.
” ?Roll in the Dough? is part of Maryland Saves [and Maryland Saves Week], which is part of America Saves,” said Joan Lok, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation liaison for the program. “America Saves is basically what we call a social marketing movement, meaning that we are trying to change habits or a social behavior ? in this case to get people to increase savings and reduce debt so they can move into asset-building and creating a better financial future.”
The short-term program, Feb. 25 to March 10, includes a coalition of nonprofit and community organizations, the FDIC, educational groups and 188 bank and credit union branches statewide, promoting financial responsibility through a chance to win a $1,000 certificate of deposit by saving at one of the participating financial institutions during the period.
Some 200 attendees at Money Power Day expressed interest in the previewed program, Lok said, and 30 others signed up for the companion Maryland Saves initiative (mdsaves.org), a local version of the larger, Consumer Federation of America-sponsored America Saves effort. It offers a free newsletter and online financial counseling to enrollees ? and tracks savings results nationwide.
“The banks [and credit unions] are hopefully now enrolling people left and right for the chance to win the thousand dollars,” said Julie Judy, University of Maryland Cooperative Extension liaison for the programs. The raffle will take place on April 18 at a place to be determined, she said.
Underscoring the programs? objectives is the fact that, according to Consumer Federation of America Assistant Director Nancy Register, America has ? for the first time since the Great Depression ? turned in a negative after-tax savings rate two years in a row.
Register added, however, that, since America Saves? inception in 2001, 71,000 savers across 51 nationwide jurisdictions have enrolled, and that, since Maryland Saves began in 2003, 502 savers have enrolled for a cumulative savings of $43,778 per month.
