Which 'Savings' - Spend Later or Don't Spend at all?

Like so many English words, “Save” has multiple senses, so that people talking about “saving” might think they agree, when they don’t - or vice versa. 

Let me turn to my dictionary: Here are two of the four meanings of Save:

First, Save means, “keep and store up (something, esp. money) for future use: she had never been able to save much from her salary“ - . I think this is the meaning of Save that most readers of Savings Revolution have in mind: don’t spend now, so you can have a big lump sum to save later. Let me refer to this meaning by the shortcut Save (put aside). 

But there’s also this related definition of Save: “avoid the need to use up or spend (money, time, or other resources): save $20 on a new camcorder”. That is, Save also means simply, Spend less. I’ll call this Save (economize). 

I suspect there are lots of Savings Group members who are firmly committed to Save (put aside), not so they can spend less, but so that they can spend more. They Save (put aside) so that they won’t have to Save (economize) so much. They want to spend their money on all sorts of purchases that poverty has kept them from making, and now they see in their groups the chance to acquire some of what they consider to be the good things in life.

Let me ask you - is there really a difference between these two meanings of Save? Do you have a preference for one over the other? Do Savings Group members have a preference for one over the other?

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting about some websites that help people Save (economize).