Actually, my carrot and stick approach right now is more towards increasing monthly
cashflow rather than building up an arbitrary amount of savings — it's probably really contrarian, but I like knowing that I have a returning supply of funds each month (including the risk that comes with, I know), so I'm focusing on this first — it can also act as an emergency fund in the
meantime.
If I just wanted to park $ 50k out of my own pocket in a place that I hope it will appreciate and that I know it will spin off a little
cashflow in the
meantime, I would choose dividend paying blue chip stocks.