So, I'm attempting to make my very first mod ever. I plan it to be a simple mage's house. does anyone have any location suggestions?

Tricky question. There are some places that are heavily modded and should be avoided, and some that places that get neglected... but it can still be difficult to find a decent location.

The best way is to know which mods are the most popular, and how to avoid conflicting with them.
But at the same time, you should focus on making your mod exactly how you wish it, and as long as your mod is clean, people can't really complain.

For a Mage home, you might want to locate it near Sadrith Mora, or one of the Mage Guilds (depending on which type of magic user you are thinking of.)
Then make sure it doesn't immediately conflict with major mods that already touch that area. But otherwise, let your imagination run free.

Also, magical homes can easily exist outside of the usual world/realm, and will therefore not really conflict with anything

Just to let you know, Balmora has a very large amount of mods. Not a good place to start.

i thought it does. thanks for the advice. I think i'm gonna make this house on the edge of sadrith mora

how often should I save my mod?

It really depends on the amount of work you do within a given time. I would suggest every ten minutes as a habit. And if habits are hard for you to develop, there is an auto save function you can set in the CS preferences.

sweet thanks

Personally, I avoid the auto-save... But that's because I drink & mod sometimes.
But regardless of if you use auto-save or not, be sure to always keep a daily back-up copy of your esp somewhere. Many mods in the community have died because of a failure to do so. I even email myself the esp once a week, so that it exists no matter what happens to my computer.

Every time I create something that makes me smile, I save. And I save every 10 minutes even if I was just moving a bucket back-and-forth.
When doing dialog, save a LOT. Re-doing quests/journals/dialog is very frustrating.

But if you have at least one back-up copy, don't worry too much about mistakes. And remember that you can exit without saving at anytime.

Also, in case of corrupted original mod file, your last saved mod change should exist as pukcab.bak file, just rename it.