Alpha Female, Beta World

My Alpha Financial Philosophy April 12, 2007

Since I expect this blog to take a personal finance twist from time to time, it seemed relevant to provide some background on my own financial philosophy.  The most accurate description of my financial personality might be “Frugal Yuppie.”  I pride myself on being a conservative spender and a black belt saver.  However, I do hope to have a fabulous house and nurse a weakness for fashion (thus the “yuppie” addendum). 

As far as investing goes, I’m a newbie.  As I was very conservative with my money throughout college, I continued this trend once I landed my first job.  My husband (then boyfriend) was the one who pushed me towards investing, with the attitude that not investing was a bigger risk.  He’s had me convinced for about a year, and now I’m a fairly aggressive investor (select mutual funds and individual stock picks).  Though the market is currently rough, I’m young enough (25 years old) to handle the ups and downs.

Recently, paying the mortgage on our lovely new home on just my salary has put a major dent in my ability to save.  As we make improvements to the house and get established, money seems to flying out the door faster than I can earn it. However, I would never put my future at risk for the present, so I continue to make regular Roth IRA (mine and his) and 401k contributions.

My most common pitfalls are lack of budgeting (I never used to spend even close to what I earned, so this wasn’t a problem before marriage) and being somewhat overly frugal.  While I’m a bit pinched, I don’t want to spend these years feeling like crap about money, but without letting ourselves have many treats, it’s easy to get down on myself about poor cash flow.

In short, I’m pretty sure I’m going to win the financial war eventually, but the current battles are wearing me down.