My Greatest Financial Desire

Currently, my greatest financial desire is to become a homeowner. Ever since I read The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, I have wanted to own my own place. At that time the goal seemed unfeasible. I was barely getting by in NYC with plans to move to the other side of the country in less than 2 years.

Since then I have gotten married (I can see why being married typically improves your finances) and we been able to save up a sizable down payment, but maybe not sizable enough for the bay area.

Things I have been thinking about recently:

How much can we adjust our tax witholdings in order to get more of our money back now?
It's harder to figure out the right withholding number when you're married without ready access to your partner's paychecks. I am going to try to get my husband to hand over the most recent copy of his paycheck this weekend so we can adjust our withholdings.

Should my husband and I ratchet down our 401k contributions in order to save more for our future home?
The answer here is probably yes. I am reluctant to not contribute the max to my retirement since I think I may exit the workforce or work part-time once we start a family. I didn't want to ask my husband to contribute less than the maximum while I still contributed the max. I talked with my husband about contributing less to our retirement accounts and he suggested contributing less to his account, while I could still contribute the full amount without me saying anything.

Should I try doing extreme budgeting by The Force?
We already budget by the force. I have my paycheck going into 5 different accounts. However, I allow myself a fairly large "cushion" in my checking account to cover my monthly expenses, allowing myself to never worry about not being able to pay the bills out of my checking account. When I was living in NYC with a much lower income to expense ratio, I had to really watch my spending since there wasn't a lot of money in my checking account. I could change the dynamics of our checking account so that we barely have the money to pay our bills, forcing me to be more mindful of the things I card to my credit card.

Somehow I want to substantially increase our home savings rate.

Five Things I Want to Do to Save Money or Improve My Life

Reading posts from others inspires me to make changes to my own life. Here are some strategies I want to implement.

1. Stop drinking bottled water

2. Start shopping at thrift stores for specific items like maternity clothes

3. Buy a side of beef

4. Install a clothesline

5. Plant some tomatoes

Yikes! This is silly, sad, and a lesson on why paying taxes is important

I just saw this snippet about a couple who is in a fight to keep their mortgage free home over a $1.67 tax bill.

No, that's not a typo, it's not even $2.

Did More Money Make Me Happier?

This morning I woke up and saw this article
on MSN. I've read the article before in the past, but this time I decided to think more about the article in the context of my own career.

Since I started my first full time job in 2004, I've changed jobs once and my salary has increased over 50% from my initial starting salary. I hope to be making over six figures before I turn 30 - this is an aggressive goal, but hopefully attainable given my current salary history (I'm currently 27).

More money has definitely allowed me to invest more in my future. Back when I started my first job, I had no emergency fund and was barely saving anything in my 401K or Roth IRA. Now I put the maximum in my 401K, can fully fund my Roth IRA, and have a healthy emergency fund. Getting married also increased my financial resources.

When I was making less, I was probably happier than I am now. Back then I was focused on saving anything I could and things seemed simpler. Now I'm focused on saving enough for a house down payment and maxing out my 401K. My financial concerns have changed, but they still exist despite the fact that I'm making more money.

Who are the Jones?

Being an avid personal finance blog reader, I feel like a member of the PF blogging community. Frugality is emphasized by many blogs and one area that I find to be extremely important.

On the other hand, I am a college educated twenty-something married gal. My husband works for a nonprofit, but I work in the well paying financial services industry. To make things worse, I work in consulting where consumption seems to be even more prevalent.

Another group I identify with are my college friends. Many of my friends from college are still getting started with their careers, often due to the desire to pursue even more education. Other good friends have chosen less lucrative careers such as teaching.

I don't feel like I quite fit in with my co-workers since I'm not used to their consumptive lifestyle. When they invite me to get a coffee with them (and oftentimes I know that they'll pay since it can be expensed), I pass up the offer - mostly due to health reasons. I don't dress as well as I should since i don't want to invest in the wardrobe. I try to make sure I don't wear the same shirt/sweater more than once a week. :)

My frugality is very simple compared to others who blog. Yes, I buy compact flourescent light bulbs (CFLs), but part of that is because I've gotten them really cheaply at Costco (last time I got 8 bulbs equal to 60 watts for $3). However many of the more time consuming acts of frugality are beyond my patience.

Between these two extremes, I can't even determine who I should be trying to keep up with.

I probably fit in best with my old college friends, whom I spend the least amount of time with. They don't seem to be too concerned with consumption, but they don't go to the extremes to be frugal.

I'm Back

After almost an 11 month hiatus, I decided to get back in the swing of things.

The real reason I'm back is I finally decided to tell my husband, C, about the blog. He was surprised, but he encouraged me to continue writing in it.

Since I've been gone from my blog, a lot has changed in the PF Blog world.

A lot has also changed in my life - the biggest change is that I'm now married. Being married brings a lot of blessings and challenges to one's life. That's a post for another day.

Financially I am chugging along. C is not as into personal finance as I am. As a result, it's a bit challenging to get him on board with planning everything I want to do. At the time of our marriage, C was unemployed. However he received two job offers 2 weeks after we returned from our honeymoon.

This post is a bit disjointed since there are so many things to update. Maybe my mind will be more clear tomorrow morning.

How I Became Frugal

My experience with frugality began when I was living in NYC. I was a poor graduate student with family loans, educational loans, and sky high rent. In my prior life, I was a pampered college student that could meet all of my needs and most of my wants, courtesy of my parents.

Living on my own with no income was an eye opening experience. I remember passing up the jazz club with friends since the cover was $15. I wanted to go, but I remember thinking that I needed to make my money last as long as possible. With rent at $1,000 a month and less than $10,000 in the bank, I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the year.

This was an important time in my life. Had I transitioned from parental supported college immediately to the working world, I may not have gained as much appreciation for the difficulty of managing money and making money. At this time, I found the dollar stretcher, a website that has been an invaluable resource in helping me find ways to save and stretch my money.

Of course, I can't say I'm the epitome of frugality. I think it's all about the choices and tradeoffs that we make. My husband and I are planning on spending an extravagant amount of money on a vacation later this year. We are doing out best to minimize waste in our everyday lives - both for our wallets and the environment. We want to consciously spend our money on items that will bring us happiness rather than let it slip away.