In common usage, saving generally means putting money aside, for example, by putting money in the bank or investing in a pension plan. In a broader sense, saving is typically used to refer to economizing, cutting costs, or to rescuing someone or something. In terms of personal finance, saving refers to preserving money for future use - typically by putting it on deposit - this is distinct from investment where there is an element of risk.

Saving differs from savings in that the first refers to the act of putting aside money for future use, whereas the second refers to the money itself once saved. For example: you may decide to start saving 10% of your income; because you aim for your savings to grow into an amount sufficient to buy an automobile.

Saving in economics

In economics, personal saving has been defined as personal disposable income minus personal consumption expenditure. In other words, income that is not consumed by immediately buying goods and services is saved. Other kinds of saving can occur, as with corporate retained earnings (profits minus dividend and tax payments) and a government budget surplus.

There is some disagreement about what counts as saving. For example, the part of a person's income that is spent on mortgage loan repayments is not spent on present consumption and is therefore saving by the above definition, even though people do not always think of repaying a loan as saving. However, in the U.S. measurement of the numbers behind its gross national product (i.e., the National Income and Product Accounts), personal interest payments are not treated as "saving" unless the institutions and people who receive them save them.

"Saving" differs from "savings." The former refers to an increase in one's assets, an increase in net worth, whereas the latter refers to one part of one's assets, usually deposits in savings accounts, or to all of one's assets. Saving refers to an activity occurring over time, a flow variable, whereas savings refers to something that exists at any one time, a stock variable.

Saving is closely related to investment. By not using income to buy consumer goods and services, it is possible for resources to instead be invested by being used to produce fixed capital, such as factories and machinery. Saving can therefore be vital to increase the amount of fixed capital available, which contributes to economic growth.

However, increased saving does not always correspond to increased investment. If savings are stashed in a mattress or otherwise not deposited into a financial intermediary like a bank there is no chance for those savings to be recycled as investment by business. This means that saving may increase without increasing investment, possibly causing a short-fall of demand (a pile-up of inventories, a cut-back of production, employment, and income, and thus a recession) rather than to economic growth. In the short term, if saving falls below investment, it can lead to a growth of aggregate demand and an economic boom. In the long term if saving falls below investment it eventually reduces investment and detracts from future growth. Future growth is made possible by foregoing present consumption to increase investment. However savings kept in a mattress amount to an (interest-free) loan to the government or central bank, who can recycle this loan.