What Every Self-Employed Woman Needs to Hear About Retirement
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The number of Americans who say they need to retire comfortably is $1.46 million. The median retirement savings for Americans aged 55 to 64 is $185,000. For my age group, 45 to 54, it is $115,000. I’m not off on the math; that is a $1.275 to $1.3 million gap, depending on your age.
Before you close this tab and go stress eat something, stay with me. This post is not about panic; it’s about information. And information, it turns out, is the thing most of us were never given. So, welcome to Expand Your Empire. Let’s talk about retirement.
How Did We Get Here?
Most of us grew up watching the adults in our lives operate with a level of financial confidence that, in retrospect, was entirely dependent on a system that no longer exists. Pensions, 30- or 40-year careers at one company, a gold watch at the end, and Social Security that nobody was particularly worried about.
Those adults, with the very best intentions, handed us a playbook: Max out your 401(k), buy a house, Social Security will be there. It was solid advice for their world, but their world did not survive. Their world did not survive contact with ours.
We graduated into recessions. We changed jobs constantly because that’s what the economy actually required of us. I personally changed jobs after college the way people change underwear. It was frequent, sometimes chaotic, and usually for reasons that made complete sense at the time. Then, a lot of us stopped working for other people entirely and went out on our own, which, as it turns out, the entire retirement system was not designed to accommodate.
More on that in a minute. The point is, we followed the advice we were given, and the advice was incomplete. That’s not a personal failing; it’s just an information gap. And today, we are closing it.
The Numbers, and Why They Matter
Let’s stay with those numbers for a second, because I don’t want to just blow past them. $1.46 million is what people say we need. That number went up $200,000 in a single year, not because we all suddenly became more ambitious about retirement, but because eggs cost $4 and healthcare costs keep climbing. We are living longer than any previous generation, which sounds like a blessing until you do the math on how long your money lasts.
For those aged 55 to 64, that’s the median. Half of Americans in that age group have less than that saved. For women, it hits differently. Women retire with less money on average across every income level, and the realities are real, and they stack up: career breaks for caregiving, the pay gap compounding for decades, and longer lifespans stretching every dollar further than planned.
This isn’t just a personal finance problem; it’s a structural one. But structural problems still require personal solutions, which is why we are here.
What That Number in Your Account Really Means
Here’s the other thing: nobody tells you about that number in your retirement account. What you see is not what you will actually have. That number hasn’t been adjusted for inflation yet. It also hasn’t accounted for taxes, because, depending on your account type, the IRS will absolutely take its cut when you start withdrawing. Nor has it accounted for fees: investment fees, expense ratios, and advisor fees. These small percentages compound quietly for decades.
The number in your account is a starting point for a conversation, not the finish line.
Social Security: The Real Story
And then there’s Social Security. Let’s talk about that for a minute, because I think a lot of us have a vague sense that it exists and that we’re supposed to count on it, but also that something might be wrong with it, though we’re not entirely sure what.
Here is the reality: Social Security was never designed to replace your full income. It was meant to be a floor, a supplement. Right now, it replaces about 38 cents of every dollar you earn. Most financial experts agree that you need to replace somewhere between 70% and 80% of your pre-retirement income to live comfortably. Again, Social Security only covers about 38%. So, the rest is on you.
The Future of Social Security
Here’s the part that should probably be discussed more loudly in public: the Social Security trust fund, at its current trajectory, is going to face potential depletion by the mid-2030s if Congress doesn’t act. That doesn’t mean it disappears, but it could result in automatic reductions of up to 20 to 25%.
For those of us who are not 25 years old, that is not a distant policy debate. It’s a number we need to be building into our planning right now. I’m not saying panic; I’m saying plan. Those are very different things, and only one of them is useful.
Retirement for the Self-Employed: What You Need to Know
Let’s pause here and specifically talk to my business owners and self-employed women in the room, because the standard retirement conversation skips past us so fast it’s almost insulting. The entire architecture of conventional retirement advice assumes there’s an employer handling things on your behalf: there’s a 401(k) because HR set one up, there’s a match because the company decided to offer one, there’s automatic enrollment because someone built the system.
But when you’re the employer, none of that exists unless you build it yourself. Most people don’t, and it’s not because they are irresponsible; it’s because nobody clearly explained what’s actually available to them.
SEP IRAs
A SEP IRA, which stands for Simplified Employee Pension, allows you to contribute up to 25% of your net self-employment income per year. The limits are significantly higher than a standard 401(k). It’s straightforward to open, easy to administer, and is dramatically underused by self-employed people who would benefit greatly from it.
Solo 401(k)s
There’s also a Solo 401(k), designed for self-employed people with no employees, except maybe a spouse. It lets you contribute as both employer and employee, which means you can potentially put away even more per year than the SEP allows, depending on your income. If you haven’t looked into this one, I recommend you do.
Whole Life Insurance as a Retirement Tool
There’s another option that doesn’t get mentioned often enough in the self-employed retirement conversation, and I think it should. Depending on your age and your situation, a whole life insurance policy can function as a financial vehicle with similar tax advantages to a retirement account. The cash value grows tax-deferred. You can borrow against it, unlike a 401(k). There’s no age limit, no contribution limits, and no required minimum distributions.
Is it right for everyone? No. Does it deserve to be part of the conversation, especially for women who are my age or a little younger, who may have different needs than someone who’s closer to 60? Absolutely. Talk to someone qualified to evaluate your specific situation. But please know it exists.
Also know the system wasn’t built for us. That doesn’t mean we’re excluded; it means we have to build our own, very deliberately, because no one is doing it automatically on our behalf.
Your Retirement Toolbox is Bigger Than You Think
Now, here’s what really frustrates me, and why I started this podcast in the first place, on behalf of women and, honestly, self-employed people everywhere. Most of us were handed two tools and told that was the whole toolbox: a retirement plan and Social Security (maybe a savings account if we’re feeling ambitious), and that’s it. That is not the whole toolbox. It’s barely the introduction to the toolbox.
Retirement Wealth-Building Vehicles
The vehicles available to build wealth are extensive. Let me read you some of them:
– Real estate rentals
– Real estate lending
– REITs (real estate investment trusts)
– Index funds
– ETFs
– Dividend stocks
– Bonds, bond ladders, treasury bills
– I Bonds (hedge against inflation)
– CDs
– High-yield savings accounts
– Annuities (income you can’t outlive)
– Whole life insurance
– SEPs and 401(k)s
– Private equity and private credit
– Business ownership
– Commodities and precious metals
If you’ve been watching crypto or Bitcoin for the last several years, you understand what you’re actually getting into. Those digital assets exist as a speculative layer that some investors include deliberately, with full awareness of the risk. This is only a partial list.
Yes, every single one of these carries risk. Some require significant capital. All of them require due diligence and, ideally, guidance from someone qualified to evaluate your specific situation.
Building Layers, Not Buckets
Everyone’s situation is unique. And I’m not your financial adviser; I’m the friend who got tired of being the least informed person about her own money and decided to do something about it.
Here is what I want you to take from this list: the women who retire with real options didn’t put everything in one bucket and hope for the best. They built layers—different tools for different problems. Real estate hedges against inflation. Annuities create guaranteed income. Those I Bonds protect your purchasing power. Business ownership builds equity while you’re working.
You don’t need a finance degree to understand this; you just need curiosity and a willingness to start.
What If You’re Barely Getting By?
If you’re reading this and thinking, “This is great, Amanda, but I am barely covering my own bills. I don’t have extra money at the end of the month,” I hear you—I have been that person. But here’s what I want you to know: the answer is not to wait until things feel better. They don’t get better by waiting. They get better when you make a decision and take one specific action.
If you have a 401(k) or a 403(b) at work, increase your contribution by 1%. Most people can’t even feel that 1% in their take-home pay; it’s below the threshold of noticeable. But over 20 years at 7%, that compounds into something real. If your employer offers a match and you’re not capturing the full match, you’re leaving part of your compensation on the table every single paycheck. That’s free money already allocated to you as part of your total compensation package, so stop giving it back.
If you genuinely have no margin right now, the most powerful move you can make is to learn. Understanding your own financial situation costs nothing. The gap between where you are and where you want to be starts closing the moment you decide to actually look at it.
Closing the Gap, One Step at a Time
Here’s where I want to land on all of this: the gap is real. It exists across every age, every income, every career path, but so do the tools to close it. Most of us were simply not given that full list. That’s exactly why I’m building and about to launch my Investing 101 course, and the waitlist is open now.
This is not a course that assumes you already know things or makes you feel bad about not knowing them. It’s not going to talk to you like you’re either a finance PhD or someone who needs things explained in very small words. It covers the basics of investing, every major asset class and vehicle worth knowing about, and the confidence and emotional frameworks you actually need to make decisions with your own money, without second-guessing yourself into paralysis.
I built it because the version of this that already exists wasn’t built for us. So, I created one that was. The link to join the waitlist is in the show notes. Get curious, get learning, and understand that when your money is making money, your life gets easier.
That’s my take for today. We can close the gap; we just have to do it one step at a time. Until next time, keep building.