2015-09-25

(This content was produced in partnership with State Farm)

If you’ve been paying attention to your favorite personal finance bloggers then you know that we’re all mostly recovering from the best conference in the world – #FINCON15.

This is where all the money nerds and related media gather for a few days to network, learn and fine tune their craft within personal finance.  We all have this in common – we want to share our experiences and educate our readers on the many issues within personal finance.

Examples include but aren’t limited to debt reduction, financial planning, investing and ways to make more money – passively.

These topics as well as others are so important to our readers’ lives and this conference challenges us to be the best we can at what we do.

To that end, The Plutus Awards was born.

The Plutus Awards was established in 2009 by the founder of Consumerism Commentary, Harlan Luke Landes. Consumerism Commentary was one of the first independent blogs to focus exclusively on personal finance, particularly from the consumers’ perspective. As the community of independent financial publishers grew, Landes saw the need for the community to support each other and to advocate for itself and its legitimate place within the larger community of financial media. That remains part of the mission today, as the Plutus Awards also serve to influence the financial industry by providing accolades for the companies that develop the best products and services.

(source: http://www.

theplutusawards.com/)

In other words, the awards serve to highlight the good work we’re doing within personal finance.  Girls Just Wanna Have Funds was nominated for Best Finance Blog for Women in 2015.

Some of the winners in 2015 include:

Best Military Finance Blog: The Military Wallet (Finalists: Budget Loving Military Wife, The Military Guide, Military Money Manual, Military Money Matters)

Best Entrepreneurship Blog: Careful Cents (Finalists: Afford Anything, Grant Baldwin, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Side Hustle Nation)

Best Frugality-Focused Personal Finance Blog: I Am That Lady (Finalists: Frugaling.org, Frugal Woods, I Pick Up Pennies, Mr. Money Mustache)

Best Debt-Focused Personal Finance Blog sponsored by eCredable: Dear Debt (Finalists: The Debt Myth, Enemy of Debt, MoneyPlanSOS, Well Kept Wallet)

Best Deals and Bargains Blog: The Happy Housewife (Finalists: Bargain Babe, Living on the Cheap, Money Saving Mom, Northern Cheapskate)

Best Retirement-Focused Personal Finance Blog sponsored by Stocks for the Week: The Retirement Answer Man (Finalists: Financial Mentor, Our Next Life, Retire Before Dad, Retire Happy

Best Financial Independence Blog: Retire By 40 (Finalists: 1500 Days, Early Retirement Extreme, Financial Samurai, Go Curry Cracker)

If you’ve been attending FINCON for a few years, then you know that our group as a whole has grown leaps and bounds.  Especially within the area of women and finance bloggers.  When I started blogging about women and money, there were very few women on the scene.

But as the Internet grew and blogging exploded more women started to share their financial journeys with the masses.  The Plutus Awards highlighted so many women in almost all of their categories and I was over the moon excited!

September is Life Insurance Awareness Month which just happens to coincide with The Plutus Awards.  Very timely if you ask me.  Since this issue is largely ignored outside of personal finance circles, it felt right bringing it up here.  After all, the lack of life insurance coverage  among Americans, women specifically, which threatens the security of gains in income and primary provider status that women are making in the workplace and at home.

And we all know, life happens right?  All too often, we’re the ones picking up the slack or slapped with the heavy burden of making our lives work when everything else is broken.

A few facts on this issue:

Women make up an underserved population in the life insurance category, and State Farm is committed helping women live their lives more confidently with appropriate levels of coverage

A foundational element to living life more confidently is protecting your assets and supporting the ones that you love most, both of which are supported by the ownership of life insurance coverage

Currently, only 33% of Americans have individual life coverage (LIMRA 2015), and more worryingly, one of the fastest-growing sectors of workers, women, carry the smallest amount of life insurance coverage with respect to their income. While gains continue to be made by women in workforce numbers, influence, pay and responsibility, this critical insurance gap represents a concerning counter to these gains.

Women are growing in their participation, wages and responsibility in the workplace, and in family set-ups, are increasingly serving as the primary wage earners. Despite these gains, coverage in life insurance continues to lag the most for working women.

A foundational element to living life more confidently is protecting your #LifeMoments and supporting the ones that you love most, both of which are supported by the ownership of life insurance coverage

Enter State Farm’s push to help people in the most important moments of their lives protect what is most important to them. They’re doing this by giving them the confidence to live each moment the way it should be lived. State Farm is in a position to realize this change, and is using LIAM and The PLUTUS awards as a starting point to affect change.

They do this by helping people manage the risks of everyday life while recovering from the unexpected and movinbg towards realizing their dreams. As the leading provider of individual life, auto and fire insurance, State Farm takes its role as educator very seriously, and has designed a series of programs to help grow the understanding of life instance and its benefits.

So you see The Plutus Awards highlighted much more than the best in personal finance blogging. The ever increasing presence of women personal finance bloggers continues to empower our contingent alongside State Farm to help women deal with the ever present possibilities of life’s curve balls. And we’re bringing awareness to this issue by celebrating Life Insurance Awareness Month at The Plutus Awards.

Show more