Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs - How Do Women Rank?
by Nina Smith

“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”– Peter F. Drucker

Last week, FIRE Finance put together a list of the “Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs” based on monthly traffic as reported by Quantcast, SiteMeter, and Compete along with Page Ranks. Only two made the Top 25 blogs that are written exclusively by women.

[Drum roll, please] The first is Frugal for Life written by Dawn C. in Colorado. Dawn learned to live within her means after declaring bankruptcy. She’s an inspiration to those who want to lead a more frugal life. She writes:

I not only want to remember, but need to remember the fear and frustration that debt caused me so I don’t do it again!

Dawn has great tips about how to save money and stay on track by minimizing expenses. I’m a big fan of her “Many Uses For” series like this one that teach readers how to get maximum life out of empty cereal liners. She explains:

This time instead of buying waxed paper, there is an alternative out there and it sits in your kitchen cupboard just waiting to be used and abused.

Besides you can’t recycle most cereal liners. Dawn gets maximum use out of many items and shares her ideas with the rest of blogosphere. So go check her out.

[Sound trumpets] The other woman to make the cut is Kay Bell at Don’t Mess with Taxes. Kay is a Native Texan, professional journalist and self-proclaimed tax geek. She aims to:

Keep Uncle Sam cranky by providing tax and personal finance info that will mean more money in your bank account, not the government treasury.

Now there’s an incentive to read a blog about taxes. And to spice it up she always remembers to toss in some celebrity tax gossip between hosting her monthly Tax Carnival. Who knew the IRS could be such a circus? Be sure and join the fun!

A few other women were included in the next tier and many are blogs that I have personally read these last few years:

- Sharon Harvey Rosenberg of The Frugal Duchess
- The Mom at Single Ma’s Fabulous Financials
- Madame X at My Open Wallet
- Jane Dough at Boston Gal’s Open Wallet
- Amanda at Young and Broke
- The Recent Grad at Well-Heeled
- Kira at Penny Foolish
- Nicole at Budgeting Babe

All in all though – less than 20 percent of the Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs were written by women. It’s a telling stat and one that should encourage others to get into the game. Why should men get all the glory?

With that said, I’ve noted a couple of women posting on BlogHer recently about personal finance in the “All Post” tab: Mrs. Micah, or a young wife's odyssey is newly married and looking for financial accountability as a post-college adult. The other is Nicole McInerney from Dollars and Sense Education, a personal finance education company. She recently posted a Primer on Retirement Saving in a 5-part series. Both bloggers write in a unique voice and are worth noting. We need more women thinking and writing about money!

-------------
Nina’s other writings are found at Queercents where she just posted this week’s money / ethics installment of WWYD? (Jesus is free to comment too.)

Submitted by Nina Smith (view blog) on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 07:11

Comments

 

personal finance bloggers

Hi Thanks so much for the mention and the link.

You ask an important question: Why aren't there more women in the personal finance rankings?

I'm not sure if it's the old issue of "girls" & math or if the old taboo about talking about money creates a gender crush. Maybe some of the women who are also PF bloggers are not getting enough attention. There are some great voices out there, including the names mentioned in the various rankings and others.

I'm curious about what others think.

Take care!
Sharon aka The Frugal Duchess

Submitted by Frugal Duchess on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 06:50
 

You make a good point...

Hi Sharon,

I think it's a combination of many things and probably why there are so many women-centric finance books... think Suze Orman's latest best seller. Anyway, I agree with you -- more women need to be talking about money and the seasoned women PF bloggers should help promote some of the newbies!

Nina Smith
Queercents
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons.

Submitted by Nina Smith on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 07:23
 

Hurray for Kay!

Kay Bell is the current president of Freelance Austin; I'm on the board with her and she's a dynamite person. I'm so pleased that her great blog is getting so much traffic and attention.

I'm quite surprised, however, that the number of "top" women personal finance bloggers is so low. Thanks for letting us know so we can surf and support the ones who are out there.

Sheila Scarborough
Family Travel: See The World With Your Kids
Perceptive Travel

Submitted by Seafarer on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 08:14
 

I was surprised too...

that the number was so low. And yes, one more reason why we should encourage some of the new PF bloggers by reading and commenting on their work!

Nina Smith
Queercents
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons.

Submitted by Nina Smith on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 05:44
 

Stats

This morning on local Canadian news, some pertinent statistics were released.

51.5% of adult Canadians are unmarried.

over 25% with children are single parents

Not to be sexist but, most of those single parents are women: women who are raising children on a single income. One of the most difficult adjustments that I had to make following my separation was to spend like I only had one income.

There are a lot of women who spend a large portion of their energy figuring out a way to stretch their dollars. If more would become involved in PF blogs, we would all benefit from the experience of those who really know how to do it.

Thanks for the links.

Kim
http://whats-next.typepad.com

Submitted by kimber30 on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 09:14
 

You make a good point

Single parents have unique obstacles when it comes to raising a family on one income. For some inspiration, check out the Ten Money Questions interviews with Catherine Morgan and Nordette Adams... they echo your perspective about some of these challenges.

Nina Smith
Queercents
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons.

Submitted by Nina Smith on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 05:54
 

Numbers

Nina,
Thanks for the mention and for addressing the important issue of women and money.

Statistics (more numbers!) show that women outlive men, so even if we're sharing finances with a man now, we likely will be eventually handling our money solo. Then you have single women (never married or divorced) and women-only relationships. All of these folks are in charge of their own money.

I do believe there are gender differences in how women and men approach finance. Maybe, even in 2007, it's partly because of societal expectations. But I do wish more women were more aggressive when it comes to money -- making it, saving it, investing it.

I see a lot of women focusing on maintenance, holding on to what they have rather than advancing it. Frugality is a wonderful trait, and I too enjoy some of the frugal blogs you mentioned. But, we also need to get ahead of the game.

That's probably why there are more male financial bloggers. They tend to be, for whatever reasons, more apt to be risk takers. Maybe they know we're back there to clean up any messes they create!

But we need to stir the money pot more, too. Now I just admitted to being a conservative investor. But that's relatively speaking. I am at least in the stock market. I know so many women who are content to rely on CDs, with their only equity exposure through their company retirement plan. That's not going to help them accumulate any wealth. Heck, it might not even help them beat inflation!

I would love to see all of us women stretch our money comfort level a bit.

Kay
Writer, editor and blogger at Don't Mess With Taxes

P.S. -- Thanks for the shout out Sheila! Good to see you today.

Submitted by Kay on Wed, 09/12/2007 - 15:18
 

Great to see you...

at the top of the list and hear from you as well.

Your observation is spot on and your comment could be turned into a post... I will definitely reference it in the future! I like the point about you seeing women focusing on maintenance while the men are more apt to take risks and grow their money.

I hear ya... women in general need to understand the value of portfolio and passive income! Instead, as you point out, they worry about how to stretch their active income. There's nothing wrong with being frugal, but we all need to learn to grow what we have.

Great thoughts. Thanks for sharing and congrats again for making the top spot.

Nina Smith
Queercents
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons.

Submitted by Nina Smith on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 06:11
 

Other places to find women blogging PF

From my days on this beat I'll point out that many women blog about their personal finance issues as part of their "life" "craft" or "mommy" blogs since running a life, side business, home or family involves money issues. Talking money is so scary and shameful for many it's a great thing to support and encourage women when they do even if they aren't primarily personal finance bloggers.

And thanks so much for this post. My perspective is skewed since I sought out and follow so many women PF bloggers, but I'm very surprised at how few high traffic women PF bloggers there are.

Kleenex® Let It Out™ Blog
Beyond Help

Submitted by Maria Niles on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 11:51
 

I have to admit...

I don't read many of the life, craft and mommy blogs... but your comment is a great reminder that I should personally take note and see what these women are saying about money. Thanks!

Nina Smith
Queercents
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons.

Submitted by Nina Smith on Thu, 09/13/2007 - 18:59
 

I've noticed this too, lots

I've noticed this too, lots of combinations blogs. I talk about life periodically as well, but my focus is on finance, unlike some others.

When I think about it, though, blogs in my reader which get the highest traffic seem to be mostly written by men. I visit a number which are mixed or which are lower-traffic women's blogs.

Thanks for mentioning my blog, it's nice to know people are reading. :-)

Submitted by Mrs.Micah on Sun, 09/16/2007 - 16:44
 

Something I noticed

I find this question of why there are so few women reading/writing PF blogs really interesting, and it's one of the reasons I started a series on women and personal finance: I discovered that only 23% of my readers were women, which really puzzled me.

One thing I tried to do when I started the series was to invite some of the excellent female bloggers to write guest posts and share their experiences / data instead of just having me write what I thought. Unfortunately, out of the 15 I tried to contact, only 2 had their email addresses listed!

So while I'm sure there lots of complicated sociological reasons for the differences in male and female PF blogging, one thing we can all do to increase our exposure is to make our contact info more easily available.

-Ramit
iwillteachyoutoberich.com

PS--I'd still love to have anyone guest post, so if you're interested, please get in touch.

Submitted by ramit on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 21:48
 

Interesting observation...

Ramit,

That's an interesting observation about women PF bloggers being less likely to post their email addresses on their blogs. Maybe it reverts back to our mothers warning us to be careful and not talk to strangers or give out our phone numbers.

My email address has been listed on Queercents from day one and I've never had any problems... a little spam, but that's about it.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. And by the way, I'll email you about that guest post! I'm sure your contact details are easy to locate.

Nina Smith
Queercents
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping without coupons.

Submitted by Nina Smith on Tue, 09/18/2007 - 06:36
 

Breaking the silence...

It’s true for blogs...and for life in general. We women do not talk about money nearly enough. I believe it’s our secrecy and silence that keeps us stuck.

I write books about women and money. And I just started blogging. I’d love to invite you all to my site: http://barbarastanny.wordpress.com/

Barbara Stanny
http://www.barbarastanny.com

Submitted by barbara_stanny on Tue, 09/18/2007 - 15:24
 

We need to support each other!

Wow! What an eye opening article. Thank you for the mention. After reading this I have added all of the blogs mentioned to my blogroll and either subscribed via rss or email to all as well. I will be posting comments regularly now and cross posting links. Ladies we need to support each other so that we can grow as bloggers and as a gender!

Nicole McInerney
President - Dollars & Sense Education
www.daseducation.com
215 499 3834
Raising Your Financial IQ!

Read our blog for tips and information on personal finance!
daseducation.wordpress.com

Submitted by NicoleM on Mon, 10/01/2007 - 14:31
 

Maybe it's buried everywhere else

I found this blog via a yahoo search of "women and finance blog". When I tried to find it again after registration it took me 2 searches before I realized I needed to scroll half way down the page to find the post again.

If other PF blogs by women are anything like this site, it's no wonder people aren't giving them any traffic!

My observations:

Personal Finance- It's thrown in as an afterthought after Business and Career.  Not everyone categorizes Money or Finances with business and career, and there is so much to talk about in the other two topics that the latter gets lost.

I'd expect PF to have it's own Topic and MULTIPLE sub topics: Saving, Investing, Taxes, Legal, Retirement, etc. I didn't find any of those sub topics or main topics for that matter.

I'm sure if I dug around enough I'd find personal finance info under all of the Topics above, but my point is that it's everywhere and nowhere on this blog.  It gives the perception that it's not important or not as important as the rest of the Topics.

I think that reflects the natural attitude that women have about money, it touches every facet of our lives but we don't give it the "special" attention it deserves.

Submitted by Wendela on Thu, 06/05/2008 - 18:49