Buying a house is a huge milestone. For most families in the U.S., it’s the largest purchase they will ever make — it all starts with building up enough savings for a mortgage down payment.

Last year, 13 percent of all homebuyers said that saving for the initial down payment on a house was the most difficult part of the purchasing process — duh, right?

What’s important to remember here is that 2020 will be a peak year for millennial homebuyers who also have the highest levels of student debt ever. That means America's largest segment of homebuyers will also have the hardest time saving up enough money for that 20% down payment on a mortgage.

So, what’s a millennial homebuyer to do?

Smart saving habits aren’t a new concept, and with the burden of student debt, young homebuyers are going to have to get smarter about how they save. Below are a few concepts to help make smart savings habits easier to manage.

Know the Goal

The first step to saving for a house is understanding exactly how much you really need to save. 20 percent is the magic number for most down payments, but that’s a recommended minimum.

If that 20 percent is still too high, you do have a couple options — start shopping cheaper houses or consider an FHA loan. Whatever route you take, having a set goal is the first step to actually saving.

Automate Your Savings

It’s 2020 — money can save itself. It’s pretty easy to log into your online bank account and set up a fixed, periodic transfer to your savings account, but there are new technology-driven tools that can help make savings even easier.

Apps like Chime and Qapital will automatically round up your daily debit and credit card purchases and set aside “loose change” from your cashless transactions. This is a simple way to accelerate your automated savings.

Dobot and Digit are AI-driven savings tools that monitor your average account balance and sets aside an extra, “safe” savings amount that shouldn’t interrupt your normal cash flow.

All of these tools allow you to set specific savings goals and deadlines and can even tell you how much you need to save each month to meet those goals on time.

Unsubscribe from Spending

We all subscribe to a lot of marketing messages — especially email messages. We all fall for flash sales and marketing messages sometimes, and less exposure to these types of ads can actually help you stop spending money helping you save more!