‘Stop pinching pennies’: Personal finance advice on saving vs investing sparks social media debate

Yashna Bhuwania has challenged a social-media claim about building personal wealth. Bhuwania is the founder of investment platform Dhan Saarthi.

The original advice states that no one becomes wealthy through saving alone. It discouraged cutting back on coffee, restaurant visits and entertainment subscriptions. Instead, readers were urged to make their money work harder through investments.

“You save ₹10,000 a month. ₹1,20,000 a year. ₹12 lakh in a decade. That's not wealth. Stop pinching pennies. Start making your money work harder than you do. One good investment does in 3 years what saving does in 30,” says the original personal finance advice.

Bhuwania questioned the sharp separation between saving and investing. She wondered what people would invest if they didn’t save anything. According to her, reduced spending eventually frees up money for investment.

“The argument was: stop cutting coffee, stop skipping restaurants, stop pinching pennies. Invest instead. But invest what? That ₹10,000 you saved by cutting expenses is literally the money you are going to invest. I think this whole “saving vs investing” debate is a bit silly,” she wrote.

People earn money and avoid spending their entire income. This creates a surplus that can then be allocated to suitable investments.

Bhuwania accepted that skipping one coffee would not make anybody rich. However, she stressed the importance of repeatedly creating an investible surplus.

“The habit of consistently creating investible surplus absolutely matters. The problem isn’t saving. The problem is saving and stopping there,” she concluded.

Social media reaction

LinkedIn users reacted to the personal finance argument.

“Saving and investing are not competing strategies. Saving ₹10,000 monthly creates the investible surplus; at an assumed 12% return, investing it could build roughly ₹23 lakh in 10 years, though returns are never guaranteed. Wealth is usually created through this discipline—not one ‘good investment’,” wrote one user.

“The issue often overlooked is the opportunity cost of saving. That ₹10,000 saved today could be the capital that builds an asset tomorrow. How do you guide clients to balance immediate savings with longer-term investments?” wondered one user.

One user pointed out, “It’s the balance that you have to find. A penny saved is a penny earned, what most parents would have said out loud and repeatedly.”

“Balance is the key but sometimes we need to give ourselves a little push. What worked for me is the mindset of Income – Investment = Expenses. It may seem extreme, but once you set a hard number for your investments, managing the rest of your money becomes effortless,” came from another.