diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/trainer.py b/src/axolotl/utils/trainer.py
index f69c56117..4c3c3fccd 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/trainer.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/trainer.py
@@ -62,8 +62,6 @@ def setup_trainer(cfg, train_dataset, eval_dataset, model, tokenizer):
         if cfg.logging_steps is not None
         else max(min(int(0.005 * total_num_steps), 10), 1)
     )
-    save_steps = cfg.save_steps
-    eval_steps = cfg.eval_steps
 
     training_arguments_kwargs = {}
     if cfg.bf16 == "full":
@@ -123,16 +121,16 @@ def setup_trainer(cfg, train_dataset, eval_dataset, model, tokenizer):
         num_train_epochs=cfg.num_epochs,
         learning_rate=cfg.learning_rate,
         evaluation_strategy="steps" if cfg.val_set_size > 0 else "no",
-        save_strategy="steps" if save_steps else "epoch",
-        eval_steps=eval_steps if cfg.val_set_size > 0 else None,
-        save_steps=save_steps,
+        save_strategy="steps" if cfg.save_steps else "epoch",
+        eval_steps=cfg.eval_steps if cfg.val_set_size > 0 else None,
+        save_steps=cfg.save_steps,
         output_dir=cfg.output_dir,
         save_total_limit=3,
         load_best_model_at_end=(
             cfg.load_best_model_at_end is not False
             and cfg.val_set_size > 0
-            and save_steps
-            and save_steps % eval_steps == 0
+            and cfg.save_steps
+            and cfg.save_steps % cfg.eval_steps == 0
             and cfg.load_in_8bit is not True
         )
         or False,