[RyanCavanaugh]

Income - Spending = Savings. It's an accounting identity.

A common trick people pull in the shitty version of these articles is counting savings as "spending" and then declaring that "At the end of the month, there's $0 left!", because by definition if you count savings as spending, then you never "save" anything.

Let's say I have a $100k mortgage, take in $1000 a month, and spend (in the true sense of the word) $500. Whether I apply the remaining $500 to my mortgage balance or put it in my savings account has no material bearing on my net worth. The unspent money is "saved" whether it goes into cash reserves or debt reduction.