That suggests to me you're not using what Word calls templates at all, but documents you're using as templates. The fundamental difference from a user perspective is that, when you create a document from a Word template, a new document is created and the template is left alone. Word handles this automatically. The new document will, like any other new document such as when you open Word, will start off with a name like 'Document1', and you'll need to save that to wherever you want it. Without some fairly deliberate effort, you won't be able to save that over the actual template.

To turn a document into a Word template, choose File|Save As and choose 'Word Template' from the 'Save as type' dropdown. Note that, from then on, if you select the template file and double click on it in Windows Explorer, what will open is a new document based on the template, not the template itself (you'd need to use File|Open from within Word to edit the template). If you've saved the template to Word's templates folder, you'll be able to create a new file from it quite easily from within Word via File|New.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]