Why women are naturals at managing money but don’t think they are
5 Minute Read
Summary
- Many women excel at budgeting and saving but often lack confidence in long-term investing.
- Underconfidence, cultural assumptions and high advisor minimums can limit access to wealth guidance.
- Starting small, asking clear questions and considering advice-only planners can build financial confidence.
Long before they ever sit down with a wealth advisor, most women are already pretty good at managing money.
They balance budgets, manage career growth, manage an RSP, help their aging parents budget, and think about the future.
Yet when the conversation turns to investing, retirement or long-term wealth, confidence can vanish fast.
Melissa Laursen has seen it again and again. Before becoming a wealth advisor at PWL Capital, Laursen was a high school teacher. In the staff room, largely surrounded by female colleagues, the same quiet question kept surfacing: Am I saving enough? Should I be investing? What if I make the wrong decision?
Those conversations stayed with her. Laursen had long been interested in financial literacy and investing, but she had been wary of an industry that could feel too sales-focused. During the pandemic, she made the leap.
“I was always interested in financial planning,” she says. “But what really drew me in was the chance to help people—especially women—feel more comfortable making decisions about their money.”
She says the issue for women is not capability. Women often excel at qualities that support strong long-term investing: patience, discipline and a preference for steady progress over speculation. In fact, according to a 2024 Fidelity report, although only 40% of women have historically invested, they typically earn returns that are up to 1.8 per cent higher than men.
The issue? Many women don’t always recognize patience and discipline as financial strengths—or don’t feel invited into the conversations where they matter.
Confidence gap, not capability gap
So if women can be strong long-term investors, why do so many hold back?
Laursen says investing is often perceived as risky, confusing, and easy to get wrong. For Gen X and Millennial women whose decisions impact children, partners, careers, parents or a mortgage, that sense can feel loaded.
“There can be a protective instinct,” she says. “If you are responsible for other people, the idea of putting money at risk can feel really uncomfortable.”
She saw that clearly while helping with a high school finance club. In one semester, a mostly male group wanted to talk about stock picking, cryptocurrency and high-risk investing. In another, a mostly female group focused on budgeting, saving and future goals. The contrast was telling. Overconfidence can push some investors toward speculation; underconfidence can keep others out of the market altogether.
That, Laursen says, is the real loss: women may be well suited to evidence-based investing, but intimidation can keep them from starting.
Who gets included in the money conversation?
The confidence gap does not appear out of nowhere. Women may be encouraged to be careful and risk-aware, but are left out of conversations about investments, insurance, retirement planning or advisor meetings.
Nicholas Donovan, a PWL wealth advisor, has seen the same kind of assumption from another angle. In his own family, his mother was often the person most responsible for the finances. Yet in conversations with professionals, questions were sometimes directed first to his father.
His father would redirect them back to her. The moment may have been small, but the message was not: even when a woman is clearly the financial lead, old assumptions can still enter the room first.
The advice gap
For single or divorced older women who are solely responsible for their financial future and tend to save through automatic contributions, that passivity is less about strategy and more about uncertainty.
But getting help can be a challenge, too. Many investment advisors require a minimum of up to $500,000 to consider taking on a client. Without that, they don’t qualify for certain kinds of wealth-management services, no matter how motivated they are to invest strategically.
So what should women do if they are not cash-positive enough for traditional wealth management, but still need more than a do-it-yourself app?
Advice-only or fee-only planners can be useful for people who want objective guidance without having to hand over investment management. Depending on the planner, clients may be able to pay by the hour, by consultation, or for a full plan.
The goal is not to become an expert overnight. It is to learn enough to ask better questions: How are you paid? What credentials do you have? Is this recommendation right for me, or are you compensated to sell it?
What good advice should feel like
Simple investing options do exist, including low-cost all-in-one exchange-traded funds and basic online platforms. But opening an account, choosing an investment and pressing “buy” can still feel enormous.
That is where the right advisor and asking the right questions can make a difference. Laursen says good planning should begin not with products, but with the person: their goals, fears and priorities.
“It should start with what keeps you up at night,” she says. “What are you trying to do with your life? What do you want your money to help you accomplish?”
Just as important is how the conversation feels. Financial planning is full of jargon, but the job of an advisor is to translate—not intimidate.
“If an advisor can’t explain something in a way you understand, that’s not your failure,” Laursen says. “That’s their failure.”
Start small, but start
Laursen recommends short, practical resources such as the webinar she gave a few years ago to address some of the unique challenges women face. A brief video webinar on investor basics or a checklist of advisor questions can be enough to get started. PWL Capital has a free library of YouTube videos, podcasts and links available.
She also encourages women to recognize the knowledge they already have. Managing personal finances, planning around competing needs and thinking about security are all forms of financial work.
“Women should have more confidence in themselves,” Laursen says. “They are already doing so much of this work. They just may not call it financial planning.”
For those considering professional advice, these questions can help guide the conversation before choosing an advisor:
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How are you compensated?
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What credentials or designations do you hold?
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Are you advice-only, fee-only, commission-based or a combination?
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Do you have minimum asset requirements?
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Will you explain recommendations in plain language?
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How will you help me make decisions based on my goals, not just products?
The goal is not perfection. It is confidence: enough to ask questions, to spot a good advisor, and to take the next step. Learn more at PWL Capital.
