Where's The Money?

So the average American is supposed to be saving hundreds of dollars each month at the pump, and this has been going at least 6 months as the price of gasoline has gone down, down, down. However, according to official reports....
1. December retail sales were down .9%
2. January retail sales were down .8%
3. January home foreclosures were up 5%

So people are apparently not shopping or paying their mortgages with all this money they've saved at the pump. So where's the money?

This article describes where all the savings are likely headed.

This is all just my opinion, but I think we will see a little bit more growth in cyclicals in Q2 or Q3. Oil prices still seem a bit unstable which will make people wary about accepting the low prices just yet. Where I live a gallon of gas made it down to 1.88 then within the next week jumped to 2.18, as a consumer that doesn’t make me too comfortable to go out and start spending my extra cash just yet. I think we have to remember that all the consumers of today, besides being debt laden, saw and lived through the 2008 recession. It’s bound to make people far more cautious with their money when they have it, and to encourage the development of some financial acumen.

I only really mention the stuff above because I think that any macro-economic situation is usually more complex than any 1 issue, but ultimately, I just don’t think consumers are as poor off as talking to them for 15 minutes would have you believe. The average American family at least, while they will bitch incessantly about not having enough money, wants for absolutely nothing. This past Christmas I don’t think they avoided buying Xbox-ones with lots of games for their kids because times were just too hard. They did, and they have, and they will, continue to buy all the things they like that don’t matter. The 50-100-200 extra bucks they’re getting, for most people, isn’t enough to cause any real change in that, it just makes it not as stressful to do it. Which, if that is given enough time, I think will have an economic impact, we just also have to take into account a longer time-frame due to a more cautious consumer who is aware of financial struggles.