Nearly six in 10 U.S. adults say they don't have enough savings to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense.
Two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, increasing the importance of flexibility in when and how bills are paid.
Consumers are relying more heavily on debit cards and automatic payments, but overwhelmingly prefer a human when they need help resolving a billing problem.
An unexpected car repair, medical bill, or broken appliance costing $1,000 could create a financial crisis for a majority of American adults, according to a new study.
The 2026 ACI Speedpay Pulse Report found that 59% of U.S. adults don't have enough savings to cover a $1,000 emergency expense. At the same time, two out of three Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
The findings suggest that strained household finances aren't just affecting what consumers buy. They're also changing the way people want to pay their monthly bills.
More than three in five consumers said having control over when their bills are paid is very or extremely important. Half identified clear and predictable due dates as an important tool for managing their finances, while 44% valued real-time payment reminders.
The financial pressure crosses generations. Nearly half of Gen Z and millennial consumers and 40% of Gen X consumers said they don't have enough money available to handle a $1,000 emergency.
Debit cards gain ground
One way consumers appear to be managing tighter budgets is by increasingly using debit cards rather than credit cards.
Debit accounted for 52.7% of usage measured in 2025, putting it 11.4 percentage points ahead of credit cards. Among Gen Z consumers, debit usage reached 74.7%, according to the report.
Debit cards can provide consumers with a clearer connection between what they spend and the money actually available in their bank accounts. Unlike credit cards, they generally don't allow consumers to finance purchases and carry the balance from month to month.
Automatic bill payments are also becoming more common. About 55.4% of consumers now use a combination of one-time payments and automatic recurring payments, compared with 43.4% in 2019.
Mobile payments have grown sharply as well. Forty percent of consumers reported paying a bill through a mobile wallet in 2025, up from 17% in 2019.
Consumers still want a person when something goes wrong
Artificial intelligence is making its way into billing and customer service, but consumers aren't ready to turn everything over to a chatbot.
ACI found that 53.4% of consumers have interacted with AI-powered billing or support tools. However, 89.1% said they still prefer a live person when trying to resolve a billing problem.
Even among Gen Z consumers, 82% preferred human assistance.
That could be particularly important when household budgets leave little room for error. A missed payment can result in late fees, service interruptions, or other costs that make an already tight financial situation worse.
For consumers living paycheck to paycheck, the findings suggest that some relatively simple tools could make bills easier to manage: choosing predictable due dates when companies allow it, setting payment reminders, and using autopay selectively.
Consumers using autopay should still make sure enough money will be in the account when the payment is processed. Otherwise, a tool designed to prevent a late payment could instead result in an overdraft or other bank fee.
The ACI Speedpay Pulse is an annual study of consumer billing and payment trends. Each data set includes at least 3,000 U.S. adults who are responsible for paying at least two household bills each month. Samples are balanced to U.S. Census demographics, and the margin of error for questions answered by the entire sample is less than 1.8 percentage points.