Interest rates have no effect on saving money

From time to time I hear or read a newspaper article or blog about interest rates affecting savings and I always shake my head at this and wonder how interest rates can have any effect on a person's ability to save. Perhaps I am too simplistic and am only concerned about saving money and not worrying about the potential for lost interest by not putting my money into an investment. After all, these articles and such indicate they are about SAVING and not investing.

Maybe a definition of save needs to be made so let's load up and go to the lazy man's highway known as the internet. (And when I say lazy man I mean mankind so as to include the female population too.) Here are a couple relevant definitions of save from thefreedictionary.com (the other definitions refer to non monetary items)

Save
v. saved, sav•ing, saves
v.tr.

4.
         a. To avoid spending (money) so as to keep or accumulate it.

5. To set aside for future use; store.

By definition saving does not mean investing , the act of "commit[ting] (money or capital) in order to gain a financial return". Saving is simply the accumulation of money by not spending it so it can be used at a future time.

Saving is usually done with a specific purpose and, at times, for a specific dollar amount. Saving for a trip; saving for a rainy day; saving to keep a minimum balance in a bank account to avoid services charges or bank fees (not sure if this really counts as saving, maybe I'll let you know if I ever reach a minimum balance). Once the amount of the trip or the emergency fund or the minimum balance has been saved, the saving stops and the spending resumes or the investing begins. Sure any interest gained by saving will help reduce the time required to reach the savings goal, gaining interest is not really the driving force behind saving. Or at least it shouldn't be. People also set investing goals too but from my experiences the investing generally continues once the goals are reached, although more conservatively in many cases.

Contrary to what the financial industry wants us to believe, saving money can be done without the aid of financial institutions. Cold hard cash can be kept in a sock drawer, an old fashioned cigar tin or box, or even buried in the backyard (providing one has a backyard). Ohh, I almost forgot the ever popular wall safe hidden behind the exquisite Van Gogh print in the den / office (not that I have a den or an office). Interest won't accrue without saving money at a bank (unless of course you forgot how much you already had saved and end up with more money than expected but even that isn't really interest just a pleasant surprise) but then again, you won't lose any of that money by service charges or transaction fees either. Investing needs to be done in some sort of financial institution and comes with all sorts of fees or charges.

Saving money is more a question of a person's discipline and desire for the future prize (the trip or the knowledge of being able to withstand a job loss for a few months or even the eventual reduction in bank fees) and not so much a question of the interest rates on the saved money. If one is concerned about interest amounts they should consider investing instead. Banks only provide interest on savings accounts so people use them and not their sock drawer, or the hidden wall safe, so banks can use the people's money to invest it and make even more money as well as charging everyone transaction fees every time they access / withdraw their money.

Interest rates are an added bonus when saving money and should not be considered when deciding to save money. People need to be more conscious of the difference between saving and investing. They need to understand that saving is all about having a set amount of money after a set amount of time to use for a specific purpose. Investing is about growing money with interest rates. It is a necessity for banks to provide an interest rate on savings accounts because, after all, everybody has a sock drawer.