My Dad has never been much of one for giving advice, but one piece he offered many years ago stuck: Pay yourself first...

Pay yourself first is a short way of saying set some money aside every paycheck, before you start paying everyone else...

It is along those lines that Reid Cramer, a policy analyst and research director of the Asset Building Program at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, has been trying to get official Washington to listen to a new idea about the old virtue of thrift: "wise spending that creates greater wealth at a future time."

Cramer calls his concept AutoSave, and he says it is based on "behavioral economics" showing that simple, default savings plans work best. Direct deposits that put your cookie jar on autopilot.

In the AutoSave idea, 2% of pay would be moved by employers into a limited set of low-cost investment options specified by the employee. So after a year, an employee who makes $50,000 would have $1,000 set aside, plus the return on it. You could do that yourself, of course, but behavioral economists say you wouldn't and statistics show you don't.

The employee could get access to the money for any reason, but Cramer thinks it shouldn't be ATM-easy, maybe requiring at least a phone call during business hours or some other obstacle that allows for a second thought. Easy in, not quite so easy out is, he says, the model that works best.

The accounts would be portable, too, so as long as you're working, you can be saving. And Cramer might install some kind of tax credit for employers as an incentive to set up AutoSave.

"The evidence is in that when the savings process is easy and accessible, even people with low incomes can and will save," Cramer said. "Too many of our savings policies leave out large chunks of the population, such as those without employers offering 401(k) plans or those without high enough incomes to take advantage of tax preferences. ... While some would quickly withdraw their funds or use AutoSave in emergency situations, others might decide to build up a nest egg. So while the funds could be tapped at any time, AutoSave would be designed to take advantage of one of the most tried and true savings techniques: inertia..."

For the complete article, please visit The Detroit Free Press website.