Popular Courses. One final thing to keep in mind: Investing is a long-term strategy for building wealth. Login Newsletters. Basically, saving money is putting money aside on a regular basis. With a relatively small amount of money, you can start investing and saving and get on the path to reaching all of your financial goals. A general rule of thumb is saving should be short term while investing should be long term. While in the CD, your money is safe and grows at a slightly bigger interest rate than in a regular savings account, but accessing it before the term of the CD is over could mean paying fees and penalties.