Payroll Plan Suggests Saving Need Not Hurt.

Do you wish a genie could make you save by secretly slipping money out of your paycheck every week? For some lucky employees, a genie is hard at work.

I'm speaking not just of people who contribute to payroll-deduction plans. I am speaking of those who have access to plans but haven't bothered to join.

Around half of all workers today are offered some sort of company plan -- a 401(k), 403(b), 457 or whatever. Typically, yow sign up for the plan when you first join the company. Your contribution goes into assorted investments, which build you a nest egg with no further effort on your part.

It's a terrific deal--but around 20 per cent of you pass it by. Those who don't join are typically younger or have modest take ho pay. They're not clued into saving for the future. Or maybe they think they can't afford to contribute to a plan.

But a growing number of companies aren't taking no for an answer. They're enrolling their workers into the plan automatically.

In these companies, you're not asked whether you can afford to save. It's assumed that you will save, no matter how little money you earn. Workers can opt out, but hardly anybody does -- even those with low take-home pay.

"Most employees didn't miss the money," says Margaret Chabris of 7-Eleven Inc., which started automatic enrollments in 1997. "They were very pleased to see their statements at year-end."

The true secret of payroll deduction is that you live on what's left of your pay, without even noticing that you've started to save. As a bonus, the company often matches your contribution. That's like picking up money you find lying in the streets.

Around 7 percent of large and midsize employers have added automatic enrollment to their 401(k)s, according to consulting firm Hewitt Associates. Many more companies are likely to follow.