Women and Men – Looking at Money Differently

I was reading some interesting articles the other day, and it seems to point out that women want different things from their money than men.

Women, crave things like stability, stress-free, financial nest egg for their children, etc.

Men, want those things too, but really, the ultimate goal for them is to amass as much money as possible and sit on it like a goose.

Their end goal is just MONEY.

Women’s end goals, tend to be SECURITY / STABILITY.

These are not the same things because guys will tend to sacrifice everything to get that money – from shady investments to get rich quick schemes, whereas women will just sit on pots of cash, scared to invest that security blanket.

I am putting it very loosely, but those are the main reasons why a lot of money rules don’t apply to women the same way as they do to men because we just don’t view money the same way.

Men are also said to be riskier with their money but really, I think we are both risky with our money but in different ways.

Men are risky with sexy schemes

The countless STORIES I could tell you about male colleagues, relatives, family members and friends who have invested in cryptocurrencies, random pyramid schemes, and ridiculous schemes could fill a book and then some.

I have talked no less than 10 guys down off the ledge from risky investments, and who knows if they even listened to me.

What I do know, is that 100% of the time they lost a bundle.

I think a lot of that stems from them not knowing what “investing” means, and just finding the sexiest, flashiest investment on the block (e.g. cryptocurrencies) and plowing money into it because they see quick gains for “cheap”.

I personally don’t mind taking risks in such things (I even own a bit of cryptocurrency), but it isn’t the bulk of my portfolio whereas men will plow tens of thousands into it, I am more likely to keep it under $5000. Even $1000 if I am to be honest.

The riskiest thing I am doing with my money is putting it into Lending Loop – which is private lending for small business owners.

Thus far, it is working out for me with a 12.9% return, but I am capping the maximum invested in this, to $100,000 in my lifetime.

I have about $10,000 in there, and am very slowly putting in money on and off.

You can read my entire Lending Loop review & how-to here if you are interested.

The second riskiest thing? I have money invested in individual stocks. Some of it has worked out (yay Enercare!) others, not so much (Boo to oil!)

Women are risky by being so risk averse

Women on the other hand, have never once come up to me and talked about a new Bitcoin they’re interested in.

Usually, women talk about all the SAVINGS they have, sitting in high interest savings accounts.

Drives me nuts each time, by the way, hearing how much they have saved (in the hundreds of thousands in some cases), when it could have been invested in the market. I get the idea of emergency funds, but these women had STABLE earning jobs and weren’t freelancers like me, so a huge stash of cash makes zero sense.

Why is this so?

It is because again, it drives back to us wanting to be more stable with our money and securing our future.

Heck, I myself am like this but over the top as I am a freelancer who has to have my money go through times of famine as well as feast.

I am sitting on about $200,000 in cash to see me through until the next contract (?????? who knows when this will happen ?????), instead of plowing it into investing in the market.

Why?

Because I want to, and NEED to know that I have cash to cover my basic living expenses, and to cover my business for the next 3 years (my maximum time frame for finding a job, the longest I have gone without working is 3 years and that was because there were literally ZERO contracts during this period.)

So now, I have a huge bundle of cash I am sitting on, earning interest in a savings account because I want to be sure I won’t be raiding my investments to sell at a loss to pay for life.

Once I get a contract, I’ll plow 80% of it into the stock market, snapping up whatever over the next 6 months. I have done this for the past 10 years, and it has kept my sanity.

Women can also be risky but lack the knowledge

What I have also read is that women can also be risky with their money but ONLY AFTER THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT TO DO.

It goes back to that old quote I heard once (forget who), that goes something like this:

Women feel like to be able to talk intelligently on foreign policy, they need to have a PhD and 10 years of experience in it.

Men feel like they can talk intelligently about foreign policy if they drive a Honda.

And it is kind of true.

Women feel the need to learn as much as possible, and to read EVERYTHING before they take a leap and make a step into things like investing. Foreign policy.

Men? Just jump into the fish tank and see how it goes, they’ll figure it out later.

Both attitudes are admirable in their own way, and in general:

Women, are so afraid of making a mistake, that it ruins their ability to make more money and take risks like telling their employers: EFF YOU and your stupid workplace rules, I’m quitting … or to invest their money in funds.

We are so scared of making a mistake and ruining our lives that we literally ruin our money and let it stagnate by not taking risks.

Men, don’t care about making a mistake and just plow money into whatever looks good, like throwing darts at a bullseye, blindfolded. They will in a heartbeat, tell their employers to stuff it if they aren’t happy, and are less concerned about making mistakes.

What we need is the MIDDLE GROUND of these two attitudes.

We need the chutzpah of men in general, and the attitude of women to research and be a little risk averse.

Only then, can we really make headway.

Thoughts?