You initially presented 2 ways of reaching that goal and mentioned that both would take almost the same time to reach it (roughly).

Your calculations are not wrong, but considering the direction of the markets and the amount of speculation that is about to hit the crypto world, I would choose the second method, buy all you need to reach the objective and then sell out your winnings to get back the money. This way, you are already covering the next jump, and let´s be real, STEEM price won´t go below $1, you are pretty safe.