Saving money won't make you rich. If you want to increase your fortune, you must invest.

Maybe you want to be able to retire with a million dollars. Or perhaps you'd like to accomplish that goal much sooner, perhaps by the age of 40 or 45.

It goes without saying that in order to amass riches, you must spend less than you make and save the difference. But simply saving money won't cut it. Additionally, you'll need to invest your money to put it to work. Here are a few clever methods to go about doing that.

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1. Load up on index funds

   Index funds are passively managed investment vehicles that follow various market indices. For instance, an S&P 500 index fund will try to perform as well as the S&P 500.

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Index funds are a smart choice for growing your wealth since they let you take advantage of market gains without having to spend the time researching specific stocks. Additionally, they provide the added security that comes with having a broad portfolio.

1. Invest in dividend stocks

An essential tool for accumulating wealth can be dividend stocks. Dividend stocks not only have the ability to appreciate in value over time, as their name suggests, but they also distribute the wealth through quarterly payments that you can choose to reinvest.

1. Look at real estate

It takes courage to invest in real estate, but if you want to become wealthy, you should think about it. An income property might function very similarly to dividend stocks in that you will receive monthly payments (in this example, rent), have the opportunity to reinvest them, and the asset itself may increase in value over time.

1. Put some money into bonds

If you're still very young, you should concentrate mostly on rewarding but risky investments like stocks and real estate. However, it wouldn't hurt to put a little bit of your money into bonds, which have some risk but less than stocks do. Bonds are a solid way to guarantee a consistent income stream through semiannual interest payments, much like dividend stocks and REITs. You can reinvest even more money as a result.

Saving money is undoubtedly a necessary first step toward building wealth, but it is insufficient. If you want to become wealthy in your lifetime, you must also make a commitment to investing consistently. However, as you can see, there are many possibilities available to you, and the sooner you begin, the sooner you'll achieve your goal.