Let's say you were going to start putting away a little money every month for a future home purchase in approximately ten years. Obviously keeping that fund largely in stocks is a little too risky, you want lower risk investments. Since interest rates are so low, a savings account or money market won't do much good against inflation. So what kind of asset balance would you recommend? Are treasuries a good option?
On the riskier side, find a good diversified (by market sector) set of mutual funds or an index fund. On only a 10 year horizon is actually riskier than implied by MMM, but still fairly safe. (Imagine, for example, if you started saving in 1999 for a purchase in 2009, you would have lost 20-30% or had to wait out the collapse.)
On the less risky side, buy into blue-chip dividend stocks, like Proctor and Gamble, etc. That is, large cap companies that produce "boring" but always in demand goods (foods, household goods, etc.) and have had a dividend continuously for many decades. On that same 1999-2009 time frame, with PG, you would have broke even (roughly) on stock value, but accumulated 10 years worth of dividends @ >=3% per year.
On and even less risky side, good bond funds are an option. Much safer than the above, but very little potential for more and 2-4%/year. Especially with public debt and monetary policy that currently exists with no end in sight.
