Although many dispute whether we earn more or less than straights, no one disputes we have lower fixed expenses. Result? incomes often multiplied by two, minus children, minus costly divorce settlements, minus non-working spouses equals more discretionary income. Our choice? Save or Spend.

We can invest earlier - should we? No question: yes. Why? Our economic advantage only lasts during the childbearing years of the legally married. When they divorce and empty the nest they're on an equal economic footing. And just about that time, the 40s or 50s, we hit our tempered glass ceiling.

If we invest something, regularly in the 20s & 30s we benefit from the only two surefire investment mechanisms, mechanisms that literally multiply our investment results with time: compounding and tax-deferred savings.

With more cash earlier we can also take advantage of a third investment mechanism: high returns tend to be associated with higher risk. Without the minuses listed above, we are far more able, no matter what our absolute pay, to put money aside for our otherwise-not-so-gay economic future.

Surprise! You have a 2nd job: it may pay to learn how to invest. It's a skill, like any other - an art based on the collected wisdom of experience. If corporate life sometimes seems like decorator's nightmare of glass ceilings and crammed closets, understanding investing may be our long-term ticket to financial security and asset growth.

On the way we need to overcome some handicaps equally unique to the gay experience.

- Investophobia. Have some of us internalized homophobia into investophobia? Do we live as if a progrom were next on the agenda, keeping our assets safe and liquid in bank savings accounts or CDs paying returns just shy of inflation? In this case the spending power of our savings dwindles just a little, steadily, year after year.

- Age Obsession. Have others generalized a fixation on youth into a lifestyle where they spend everything on the present, whether it be income, time, or energy? This group can spend long years living along the banks of denial - surprised one day by the frank mirror of bank statements magnified by the greater financial requirements of future stages of life.

- Grateful loyalty. Those who do manage to invest can exhibit the syndrome of gay hyper-loyalty. Stung by so much discrimination we can be overly grateful when we're welcomed and understood. While this is relatively harmless with 501s, it can be set the stage for inappropriate, costly investment decisions if we surrender decision-making simply because a broker is gay-friendly.

- Yoked action. If C.A. Tripp's Homosexual Matrix is right, many of our coupleships work because each partner is so different from the other - in age, income, education, occupation and investment needs. Yet in an effort to create togetherness, we may seek a common investment style which ends up shortchanging one of us in our financial partnership.

- Misplaced homemaking. Unhappy childhoods coping with discrimination can give birth to powerful desires to create "home sweet home". The result, filled with House Beautiful ideas about happiness, can drain monthly incomes dry. Some of make up from a spat by buying yet one more piece of comfort in common - a vacation, a sofa - using money to dissolve our differences of opinion.

The solutions to avoiding these pitfalls, though difficult, are clear. Invest the cash, learn to make our own decisions, develop individually tailored investment styles, and beware the spending trap.

The same factors that position us advantageously early-on for financial investment also may help us reap greater benefit from other forms of investment: real estate, entrepreneurship and investing in ourselves. Remember: despite legal gains, we're still under attack - so let's not neglect these financial defenses. Let's build our bulwark through savings multiplied in investment.