Bishti

As I age every year I am finding more and more that my thoughts turn to the future and how exactly that future will play out for me.

At the moment I have been obsessively contemplating how I can save up for a down payment on a house. I check mortgage calculators, current prices of homes in areas that I'm interested in, and I even went so far as to create an excel spreadsheet that shows me how much I can afford to spend on a mortgage depending on my income. All these efforts seem small as I still don't know how to make the most of my savings. How to make my savings work for me?

What is particularly annoying to me is the lack of sources to tell you how to save the money. There is always the traditional savings account of course and investing as well. However, I want to know should I just keep my entire savings in a regular savings account, a CD? Should I split some of the dollars in traditional savings and invest others. I have no idea and according to Google the Internet does not either.

For now I have stuck with my current method of saving a specific amount each month - having it automatically deducted from my paycheck. In the future I have decided the best approach is to take any incremental earnings I may receive - through a raise or otherwise - and simply send it to my savings. This limits my ability to buy the Marc Jacobs bag I've been coveting or taking that fabulous vacation to Belize I've been thinking of, but hopefully it will get me to the dream of owning my own home faster and with less debt.