Women Into Investing Part II: PF Bloggers

February 20, 2015 by makinthebacon 20 Comments

20 Feb

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There are a lot of great blogs out there that go into detail about how to invest and some of them even share what’s in their own personal portfolio.

However, one thing I noticed was that the people who mostly talked about investing in detail were guys. I have yet to find a blog focused solely on investing written by a female. If you know of one, please msg me or email me with the link!

So I decided to ask some of my favourite female pf bloggers what their thoughts were on women and investing. I asked them to share their thoughts about women and investing in general and/or answer one or both of the following questions:

1. What advice would you give to female investors?

2. What do you think are some reasons why women don’t invest in their finances?

In no particular order, here are their responses:

Anne from Money Propeller

1. Get out there and learn! Start with index funds or ETFs, you can even stick with them forever if you would like. Look up a fee only adviser and go talk to one, then think about what they said. Ask some friends for their opinions, ask some forums for their opinions and then do what feels right for your situation.

2. I think a lot of women are intimidated and women are more risk averse than men, so don’t tend to charge in with a cavalier attitude. It’s really unfortunate, because there are a lot of great resources out there, including local folks.

Sherry (saverspender) from Save. Spend. Splurge.

Don’t think you’re not smart enough or need to be very mathematically inclined to be able to invest, like holding a PhD in mathematics or something.

I am not a mathematically inclined person but I asked tons of questions no matter how dumb I sounded to understand as much as I could; to be honest I still don’t know what some of the more complex investing terms mean but they’re irrelevant for a regular investor like you and me; you don’t need to be an investment banker to invest your money.

If you don’t understand something then it means it is not being explained to you in a simple enough manner.

I recommend getting a list of beginner investing books to read (have a list on my blog @www.savespendsplurge.com/the-only-personal-finance-books-you-should-ever-have-to-read-in-your-life/ ) and avoid thinking that investing means knowing how to pick the next hot stock.

Investing is simply learning how to manage your money so that it grows and that includes passive investing like putting your money in index funds (what I do with the bulk of my cash).

Women are afraid of investing because they are paralyzed by being aware that they don’t know anything and they’re scared of making a mistake and losing all their money. None of this applies if you follow an investing strategy that works for your level of risk and investing knowledge.Please don’t use your sex as an excuse either because TRUST ME, men do not have the monopoly on being able to understand money management in all of its aspects – there are plenty of clueless guys out there who are guessing and pretending to be savvy investors which is even worse than admitting you’re clueless.

Know what you don’t know and start learning a bit at a time by asking questions.

Vintage image of Rosie the Riveter by J. Howard Miller. Courtesy National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, (http://www.theallstate.org/2013/03/26/we-can-do-it-women-s-and-gender-studies-department-celebrating-diversity-since-1970s/vintage-image-of-the-we-can-do-it-rosie-the-riveter-poster-by/)

Pauline from Reach Financial Independence

My advice for female investors is just to get started, for example index funds are very simple to manage, and you can have an automatic transfer on pay-day directly into your investment accounts to dollar cost average and have the opportunity to keep on buying more if prices drop. Just forget about it and watch it grow!

For me the reason women don’t invest too much in their finances is because financial education is poor in general, and if you have always relied on your parents or significant other, you don’t feel it is too important to care for yourself. But you never know what can happen, you could end up single again, with kids and a household to take care of, so I can’t insist enough on the importance of getting started.

Bridget from Money After Graduation

To be honest, I’m not sure why women don’t invest or invest differently than men. Money doesn’t care what your gender is. The stock market isn’t going to treat you differently whether you’re a man or a woman. I think the lack of confident female investors is a symptom of larger problems — the fact that women often earn less than their male counterparts in the same profession, or the myth that women aren’t as good as men at math. The advice I would give female investors is the same as that I would give male investors: start early, be diligent, and remember less is more when it comes to trading frequency!

Taylor from Engineer Cents

1. I think many women don’t invest because they are risk averse, at least when compared to their male counterparts. They talk themselves down, don’t think they are “good with numbers” or have enough experience to get into it. And so they don’t, which is a shame because by fearing loss, they end up falling behind anyway because of factors like inflation.

2. Start small and use target funds through a provider like Vanguard if you’re a beginner, or choose an investment vehicle you are most comfortable with. But whatever you do, start! Also, keep in mind that at some point in your investing lifetime, you will lose money; don’t sell while the market is down! Remember that averaged out over a long period of time you will more than likely come out ahead.

Sarah from Unsettle

1. There is a lot to learn about investing but don’t let not being an expert hold you back from investing your first dollar. It’s easy to fall victim to analysis paralysis in investing and sometimes the best way to learn is in the trenches.

2. I think a lot of it is that people in generally – and maybe especially women – think they don’t know enough and assume that the learning curve is quite high.

Also, studies show that women tend to be a bit more risk averse than men.

Alicia from Financial Diffraction

As a late 20’s woman, I started investing because of a mandatory retirement plan through my employer. I had read about investing before, but I was stuck in an analysis paralysis loop, where I wanted everything to be perfect before I put my money in the market rather than getting a basic investing education and then learning more as I went along – I wanted to be an expert overnight. From talking to my female friends, I think the fear of the unknown, feeling like we’re not fully in control, and that everything requires perfection really hinders women from making the jump from saving money to investing. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Educate yourself on index investing, and throw your money in a low-cost index fund while you learn the more complex issues; if by the end of your investing education you’re still not comfortable with more than the “set it and forget it” mentality of indexing, that’s fine, but you won’t have put off your investing for another few years while you try to get everything “perfect”.

Michelle from Making Sense of Cents

1. My advice would be to just start investing. Even if all you have is $100 to invest, it is important to start as it can quickly become addicting to watch your investments grow. Everyone has to start somewhere, right? That first step can feel hard, but once you overcome it you will realize that investing is not so scary.

2. I think a big reason for why women don’t invest is because the first step of investing that I mentioned earlier can feel so scary. Investing can seem so foreign if you’ve never done it before, and that can feel very overwhelming.

Mel from brokeGIRLrich

1. I think part of the issues is to just do it. Do some research, decide how much you’re going to invest and then get it done. If you select a solid company, odds are good you’ll do fine. Or forget about companies altogether and invest in index funds or target date funds. At the end of the day, you’ll always wish you started something that was good for you yesterday. You might as well make that day today.

2. I think investing can seem really overwhelming. How do you pick what you want to invest in? And then where do you do it? How do you find a decent brokerage firm? There are a lot of questions that take some time to figure out how to answer. I think we also have more conservative approaches to money than a lot of men do.

Lauren from LBee and the Money Tree

My best advice to female investors is to take your time. If you don’t know what you’re doing, put your money into a target date fund that adjusts risks based on your retirement date.

I think women don’t invest in their finances out of fear of failing at them. Ironically, as long as you are cognizant of your money, there is no way you can fail.

Stefanie from The Broke and Beautiful Life

I’d recommend women invest the same way as I’d recommend to anyone else- early on with a well-diversified set it and forget it approach. As a millennial, I find women are as proactive with their finances as their male counterparts. Unfortunately, I don’t see much investing from the generation as a whole. Probably because they’re wary of the market from reaching financial independence at the height of the 2008 recession.

Erin from Journey to Saving

1. My advice is to educate yourself. If investing seems intimidating, take confusion out of the equation by learning. There are tons of free resources out there that you can use to get started! You don’t have to go all in, either – take baby steps and ease yourself into the market.

2. I think being nervous is a big reason women don’t invest. Putting your money at risk in the market is difficult, but it’s necessary to grow wealth. I also think there’s an assumption that men should take care of investments, but the money is yours, too! You need to get involved.

Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

2. I stick with the target date mutual funds and real estate because the research involved to intelligently invest in individual stocks seems overwhelming to me. My husband relishes in finding reviews, data, and historical trends. I see all of that as pure tedium. Like doing taxes. He does that too. My grandma, my mother, and my uncle are all fantastic with stocks. I just rather buy another rental property to go along with our first one some day…

Lesley Scorgie- President of Rich by Inc., Founder of MeVest.ca, Best-selling Personal Finance Author and Columnist for Metro News

1. Start early and start now. You will live longer and make less..yes even in today’s society…so you must save more than your male counterparts to support your future. While you’re at it, fight for equal pay every year and take advantage of employer sponsored retirement savings programs.

2. I happen to believe that fear of the unknown is the biggest barrier for women investing. What’s remarkable, however, is that statistics prove that women investors that have taken time to learn how to invest almost always outperform their male counterparts in portfolio returns. So with a little bit of confidence and commitment to improving your investment knowledge, women can achieve tremendous investment results. Don’t be fearful. Be fierce!