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
Sherry (saverspender) from Save. Spend. Splurge.

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
Bridget from Money After Graduation
Taylor from Engineer Cents
Sarah from Unsettle
Alicia from Financial Diffraction
Michelle from Making Sense of Cents
Mel from brokeGIRLrich
Lauren from LBee and the Money Tree
Stefanie from The Broke and Beautiful Life
Erin from Journey to Saving
Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
Lesley Scorgie- President of Rich by Inc., Founder of MeVest.ca, Best-selling Personal Finance Author and Columnist for Metro News
Kind of shocking how many of us perceive the same road blocks that people are inventing for themselves!
Indeed and these roadblocks are pretty easy to overcome.
I am not sure why women need a different strategy for investing. Or different motivation. If they are risk adverse, then they may never be financially secure.
Neither do I. We take a lot of risks in life. I don’t see why we can’t do so with our money and be smart about it. Probably biggest risk is not taking the risk at all to invest.
Susan Brunner runs two parallel blogs on investing: http://spbrunner.blogspot.ca/
South of the border, Millionaire Mommy Next Door had a large focus on investing before she shut the blog down (though an even bigger focus on the housing bubble, and if you go back in her archives be sure to check the dates and how right she was).
Young from Young & Thrifty has a number of investing posts, but hardly solely focused on it.
Pretty telling that that’s all I can think of.
Young and Thrifty is one of my favourite Canadian pf blogs. Thanks for the other two suggestions. I’ll have to check those out.
Barbara Freidberg talks a lot about investing on her blog. It’s not solely investing but it heavily leans towards investing over other topics.
http://barbarafriedbergpersonalfinance.com
The only advise I would give anyone about investing is start as soon as you can. It doesn’t matter how or what you invest in, just start. If you make mistakes, oh well, you learn and you don’t make them again. A lot of investing comes down to experience, and it’s best to learn when you don’t have a lot of money to lose, so starting as early as possible is one of the best things you can do.
Starting is always the hardest part. From the words of Nike, JUST DO IT.
I think investing is still perceived as a “boys club”. Even looking at day traders as a career, most of these positions are occupied by men (something like 5% of traders are women). I think I brought up investing once with my girlfriends and they all looked at me like I was talking about drill bits.
Generally speaking, women actually make great investors but I feel they don’t invest because they don’t know enough about it. Just like using power tools, it seems like an intimidating male-oriented activity. Once you learn how though, it becomes not so scary after all!
I did too and it was a very short conversation. I feel like there doesn’t seem to be enough interest among women when it comes to investing. I don’t really like shopping, but I like shopping for stocks. Lol.
Thanks to my fiance I’ve used a drill and a palm sander. It’s sort of fun.
I love how you compiled a variety of feedback from different female bloggers and investors. Really great tips and perspectives here! I see myself having diversified investments and starting off slow and cautious first until I get the hang of it, but I’m fully confident I can make my money work for me by investing.
Thank you! I started off pretty conservative with government bonds and guaranteed investment certificates. I’ve been investing for a few years and I still feel I don’t know a lot about it, but I’m willing to learn.:)
I agree that starting is the hardest part for that is my problem. I don’t like the thought of investing my money even though I know it’s a good thing to do. It is so amazing to me how different men are from women when it comes to investing our money. My plan to invest after I become debt free is to find a good professional and have them invest my money at first and watch and learn. Then take the show on the road. Me and my money.
I wouldn’t underestimate the difficulty involved with investing: it’s not merely understanding finance, economics, and accounting, a HUGE part is also about understanding yourself (truly, deeply understanding yourself and being honest with your limits).
It depends on how far deep down the rabbit hole you want to go with investing.
Do you want to appraise individual companies and take fractional ownership in them? If so, you better know a hella lot (book knowledge and intrapersonal knowledge) or you are going to get burned badly.
Don’t care that much and just want to regularly put money away and forget about it? Well, it’s not just as simple as “invest in ETF index funds”. You better still understand yourself and the basics of what you are purchasing in ETF index funds.
Don’t even care to go that far? Honestly, you’re better off just having a bank advisor pick some mutual funds at +2% MER for you or leaving your money in a savings account. At least that way, you won’t do something absolutely stupid like selling your investments at the worst possible time for huge losses.
Investor, know thyself.
I forgot to comment on this – I find this so interesting! We’re all basically saying “hey, jump in to something basic and then keep educating yourself!” I’m fascinated by everyone’s responses.
Funny, when I first came across the whole PF/FI blogging community nearly a year ago, it didn’t actually occur to me that most of the bloggers I was reading about were male – they were just ‘people’ who saved and invested.
As with many things that I don’t understand or know much about, I just read as much as I could about investing, made the odd little mistake along the way, corrected them and moved on.
When I was growing up, I was a real tom-boy and my attitude then was “If the boys can do it, so can I!” That’s pretty much the attitude I apply to my investing now!
the best way to invetir and start slowly to learn the right strategies for long-term investment thinking … great post
That is good to know that you don’t have to be an investment banker to invest your money. I’ve been thinking of doing a little investing of my own. I may look into hiring an investment banker to help me get started, though.
had many doubts and fear in how to invest my money now with their fantastic tips for anyone who is starting in the investment world, opened my mind, thanks for sharing