--- title: Can a Simple Reminder Actually Help You Save More Money? description: A Wharton study finds that simple, well-timed reminders can significantly boost savings — and cost almost nothing to use. authors: - name: Adam Hardy role: Lead Data Reporter url: https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/ bio: Adam Hardy is a lead data journalist at Money, where he frequently reports on financial barriers that affect low-income Americans. Adam’s work has also appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Nasdaq, The Penny Hoarder, Yahoo! Finance and more than a dozen local and regional newspapers. education: University of South Florida, BA, Magazine Journalism at_money_since: 2021 articles: 498 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - The Penny Hoarder - Forbes Advisor - Creative Loafing - The New York Times - The Washington Post - Bloomberg - Harvard Law School - The Federal Register - National Consumer Law Center - CBS News - Becker's Hospital Review - Business Insider - Mother Jones - The Week - Fortune - The Philadelphia Inquirer - National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NAFSAA) - Education Advisory Board (EAB) - The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) - This Morning with Gordon Deal - Empower - Reddit social: - https://www.x.com/hardyjournalism - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hardyjournalism/ editors: - name: Katherine Peach role: Associate Editor url: https://money.com/author/katherine-peach/ bio: Katherine Peach is an associate editor with a focus on news and email at Money. Her writing and editing work has been featured in Investing Daily, Clever, Investor Junkie, The Palm Beach Letter, Truth & Plenty, Independence Monthly, NICHE, AmericanStyle, AntiqueWeek, Millennial Money, Money Done Right, TheStreet, Sure Dividend and many others. education: University of Maryland, Baltimore County at_money_since: 2025 articles: 14 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes published: '2025-12-30T18:21:53.000Z' modified: '2025-12-31T17:50:26.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - News word_count: 694 canonical: https://money.com/save-more-money-reminders/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Photo illustration of a hand holding a smart phone with an alert showing multiple dollar signs](https://img.money.com/2025/12/News-Alerts-Help-Save-Money.jpg) With 2026 mere days away, you may be wondering how to save more money. It’s one of the most common New Year's resolutions each year, after all. Not a moment too soon, [new research](https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-reminders-help-you-save-more-money/) from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found a simple but effective behavioral nudge can help you do just that. Sometimes, all it takes to increase your savings account balance is a well-timed reminder. “One of the biggest barriers to behavior change is simply that these tasks are not top of mind. We forget to move money from checking to savings, or we put it off until tomorrow,” Katy Milkman, lead author of the Wharton study, said in a [news release](https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-reminders-help-you-save-more-money/). “But when these are important decisions, forgetting can have real consequences.” In the U.S., about 40% of adults have less than one month of expenses saved, and 24% have no savings whatsoever, according to Wharton. As a potential strategy to help reverse the trend, the study looked at whether email reminders can help encourage people to put money into their [savings accounts](https://money.com/best-high-yield-savings-accounts/). To determine this, the researchers analyzed the savings habits of nearly 2 million bank customers, making it one of the largest-ever studies on savings behavior. Participants were split into two groups. One group received no emails at all, and the other group received one of seven types of email campaigns for a period of two months. The folks who did not receive an email reminder were less likely to put money into their savings account. Meanwhile, the participants who did receive an email reminder were overall 0.05 percentage points more likely to save — regardless of the type of reminder they received. The researchers found, however, that the type of email reminder could really move the needle. The most fruitful type of reminder was one that was timed weekly, encouraging them to save if they hadn’t already or, if they did that week, congratulating them. The group that received this type of email campaign was 1.3% more likely to make a savings deposit. While these numbers may seem small, given the state of Americans’ savings balances, simple (and free) interventions like this can make an outsized impact. Wharton estimated that if every person had received this type of email reminder, they could have collectively saved an extra $6 million to $10 million, and it would have cost the bank almost nothing to implement. ***Save Smarter: [Take control of your money with the Rocket Money budgeting app, one of Money's favorites](https://money.com/pr/h160ddd2a8b2?data-trk-company=rocket-money-review&data-trk-imp=true&data-trk-pcu-type=direct_link&data-trk-pcu-uuid=h160ddd2a8b2&encoded_id=)*** ## Your reminder to save The Wharton study shows that a simple reminder can go a long way with helping you reach your savings goals. And while your bank probably won’t send you automatic savings reminders like the participants of the study, you can reference the study’s design to set your own reminders. Workplace tools like Slack, Outlook and Google Calendar have reminder functions that allow you to tailor your message, timing and more. For calendar apps, you can create a task to transfer money into your savings. Then select the time, date and frequency to fine-tune it for extra effectiveness. Similarly, on Slack, the “/remind me” function lets you schedule helpful nudges through the app that can — crucially — come as push notifications on your phone. Milkman, with Wharton, says the study was designed through email because of its simplicity but that it’s also the “easiest to ignore,” adding that other methods could be better at getting your attention. Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly rolling out features that allow you to schedule updates and reminders as well. For ChatGPT, the functionality is currently available only to paid users. However, a similar tool called [Perplexity](https://www.perplexity.ai/) allows you to set up scheduled tasks on the free version. With the task function, you can create recurring reminders with custom messages that come through email, SMS or the app. ***Extra Money: [See how you can get up to $1,000 in stock when you fund a new active SoFi Invest account](https://money.com/pr/x00f9061e638)*** ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/save-more-money-reminders/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Saving Money", "item": "https://money.com/saving-money/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Can a Simple Reminder Actually Help You Save More Money?" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/save-more-money-reminders/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/save-more-money-reminders/", "name": "Can a Simple Reminder Actually Help You Save More Money?", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2025-12-30T18:21:53.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/save-more-money-reminders/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/save-more-money-reminders/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2025-12-31T17:50:26.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Can a Simple Reminder Actually Help You Save More Money?", "articleSection": "Personal Finance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2025/12/News-Alerts-Help-Save-Money.jpg", "width": 3128, "height": 2085, "caption": "News-Alerts-Help-Save-Money" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Adam Hardy", "url": "https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/#author", "description": "Adam Hardy is a lead data journalist at Money, where he frequently reports on financial barriers that affect low-income Americans. 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