The article describes and updates two approaches to savings: savings as an economic category, and as an institution, the necessity of their isolation is justified, the most significant problems in this regard are considered. The novelty lies in the development of savings theory in the relationship of the political economy and institutional approaches, which not only extends the theoretical concepts of savings, but creates additional opportunities to improve the process of savings circulation. As the result of the political economy approach, associated with the formation of abstractions, savings objective foundations are identified, the concept of household savings as an economic category (as the production relations) is developed, economic facts and processes get political and economic interpretation, social assessment of processes and phenomena are provided and etc. Within the boundaries of the institutional approach savings are referred to as an institution (as the economic behavior of the subjects in view of mechanisms for a particular type of behavior); the economic development, as well as its accompanying processes are interpreted as the economic behavior of stakeholders.