The 3Rs Every Woman Needs for Retirement Planning
Moving from outdated rules to your reality to what's realistic
Sitting in my hotel room in Berlin this Christmas morning, waiting to meet my son later for lunch, I had the opportunity to read Kiplinger's latest article updating the classic retirement planning rules of thumb.
As I read through it, I realized something that really pissed me off: these rules don't apply to women who are making less than $75,000 a year, which is the vast majority of us.
This begs a much bigger question: Were retirement rules ever set up with women in mind? And more importantly, as we continue to live longer and work differently, will people actually take notice and begin to consider how retirement planning affects women?
When conventional retirement planning wisdom doesn't apply, maybe we should consider expanding that conventional wisdom to incorporate the 3Rs. What are the 3Rs you ask? Great question. Simply put: the Rule, the Reality, and the Realistic. Now let's break that down.
The Rule is what most experts say we should do in order to save for retirement.
The Reality is that life happens and the rules don't always apply.
The Realistic is what we do when the rules don't apply or fit into a neat little box—we pivot.
Let's dive in.
Rule #1: Save 15% of Your Income Annually
The Rule
Financial experts now say you should save 15% of your income every year for retirement. This used to be 10%, but they bumped it up because we're living longer. The assumption is that you start at 25, save consistently for 40 years until you're 67, and you'll be fine.
The Reality
Let's do some actual math here. If you earn $55,000 a year, 15% is over $8,000 annually. That's more than $650 a month.
Now, if you're earning $55,000 a year, how can anyone expect you to sock away $650 a month if you're the primary breadwinner? If you're the one expected to pay the mortgage? If you're the one paying for childcare? If you have health insurance being deducted from your paycheck?
How is that even possible?
It's not. And it's actually discouraging to tell someone they should be doing something that's literally impossible given their circumstances. This is especially true for single mothers who are more focused on making sure there's food, clothes, and shelter for their children. Retirement isn't even on the radar because it can't be. You deal with what's in front of you today, not what might happen in 30 years.
The Realistic
I think the more realistic approach is using a lifetime average, not a yearly test that you pass or fail.
Here's what I mean: Make sure that if your employer offers a match to your 401(k), you at least contribute up to the match. That's free money you're leaving on the table. Even if it's just 3% or 4%, get that match.
I have to be honest with you—I didn't start really socking away money for my retirement until I turned 50. And you know what freed up that money? The last tuition payment for my younger son's college education. I remember looking at my checking account balance and thinking I had missed paying a bill. I kept checking and rechecking because I had all this money just sitting there. Then it hit me: I don't have to pay that tuition bill anymore! This is extra money!
Now, I could have gone out and spent it on something frivolous like new clothes I didn't need. But instead, I put it straight into my 401(k). And that's when things really started to change for me.
But I also did something else that made a huge difference. I took time to learn about investments. I used tools like Charles Schwab's Think or Swim and Barchart.com. I taught myself about investments because I realized nobody was going to do this for me, and I couldn't rely on rules that didn't fit my life.
So here's the realistic approach: When your car is paid off, redirect that payment to your 401(k). When your kids are out of daycare—and if you've been paying $1,200 a month for that, you know what I'm talking about—send that money straight to retirement. When you get a raise, increase your contribution by at least a third of that raise before you ever see it in your paycheck.
Some years you might save 5%. Some years maybe 8%. One year you might have to stop completely because life happened. That's not failure. That's life. The goal is that over your entire working career, you average somewhere in that ballpark. That's realistic. That's how real people save for retirement.
Rule #2: Subtract Your Age from 110-120 for Stock Allocation
The Rule
To determine what percentage of your retirement savings should be in stocks versus bonds, subtract your age from 110 or 120. So if you're 62 like me, that's 120 minus 62, which equals 58. That means 58% of my retirement savings should be in stocks and 42% in bonds.
The Reality
Okay, wait. What does this even mean?
How am I supposed to know how to calculate my age from 110-120 for stocks? So if a woman is 62 like me, I'm supposed to subtract 62 from 120 to come up with some random number of what my stock portfolio should include?
This rule assumes I understand the stock market. It assumes I know what stocks are, what bonds are, how they work together, how to rebalance my portfolio, what mutual funds to choose. But what if you don't? What if you've been so focused on keeping the lights on and food on the table that you never had the luxury or the time to learn about asset allocation?
And here's another thing: if you've got $15,000 in your retirement account, honestly, whether it's 60% stocks or 80% stocks doesn't matter nearly as much as getting more money into that account in the first place.
The Realistic
Maybe the real rule should be: Educate yourself about stocks and mutual funds so you can actually make these decisions. Or use tools that do it for you.
If your employer offers target-date funds, use them. Here's how they work: You pick the fund that's closest to when you plan to retire. So if you're planning to retire around 2035, you choose the "Target 2035" fund. The fund automatically adjusts the mix of stocks and bonds as you get older, getting more conservative as you approach retirement. You don't have to do anything. It's done for you.
Now, if you want to understand more—and I encourage you to—start simple. Google "what is a stock" and "what is a bond." There's no shame in starting at the beginning. I didn't know this stuff when I started either. Your 401(k) plan provider, whether that's Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, whoever, they all have free educational webinars and resources. Use them.
When I started learning about investments at 50, I felt like I was back in school. But you know what? It was empowering. Suddenly these numbers meant something. I understood what was happening with my money instead of just hoping someone else knew what they were doing.
The key is don't let the perfect allocation paralyze you from contributing at all. If a target-date fund makes it simple enough that you actually save money, that's infinitely better than having the "perfect" allocation in an account you never fund because you're too intimidated to start.
Rule #3: Save 10 Times Your Salary by Retirement
The Rule
The experts say you should aim to have saved three times your salary by age 40, six times by age 50, and ten times by age 67. So if you make $60,000 a year, you should have $600,000 saved by the time you retire.
The Reality
This rule does not—and I mean does NOT—take into account low-income earners, single mothers, grandmothers who became mothers again and had to raise their grandchildren, women who took years off for caregiving, women who faced pay gaps that never closed, women who got divorced and split their assets, women who were widowed young, or women who supported aging parents or adult children.
When you're a single parent, you're concerned with food, clothes, and shelter. Those are your top priorities because they have to be. Retirement sits way down on the list because you literally cannot afford to think about it when you're trying to figure out how to pay for school supplies and keep the electricity on.
To tell someone who's providing food, clothes, and shelter for their children that they should have saved ten times their salary? That's not just unrealistic. It's insulting. It shows a complete disconnect from how most women actually live.
The Realistic
Stop measuring yourself against multiples of your salary. That number was never designed for your life. Instead, let's figure out what you actually need.
First, go to ssa.gov and create an account if you haven't already. Look at your estimated Social Security benefit. For most women earning $50,000 to $75,000, this is going to be somewhere between $1,500 and $2,200 a month. The average is around $2,000. That's your starting point.
Now, figure out what you'll actually spend in retirement. Not some percentage of your current income, but real dollars. What will your mortgage or rent be? Utilities? Food? Transportation? Healthcare—and trust me, this is going to be bigger than you think. Insurance? Add it all up. Let's say you need $3,200 a month to live the life you want in retirement.
If Social Security is giving you $1,800 a month, then you have a gap of $1,400 a month, which is $16,800 a year. That's what you need to figure out how to fill.
Now, here's where it gets interesting. You don't necessarily need a giant pile of money to fill that gap. You have options. You could work part-time and make that $1,400 a month. That's about 20 hours a week at $18 an hour. Or maybe you work part-time for $700 a month and need about $150,000 in savings to generate the other $700. Or maybe you decide to move to a lower-cost area and cut your monthly expenses down so the gap is only $800 instead of $1,400.
See what I'm doing here? You're not chasing some arbitrary number like $600,000. You're solving your specific math problem based on your actual life.
And if you're nowhere near these numbers? You still have options. Can you work until age 70 instead of 67? Every year you delay Social Security past your full retirement age, your benefit increases by 8%. That's guaranteed growth. Can you work part-time in retirement for three to five years to let your savings grow and reduce how much you're withdrawing? Can you downsize your home or move to a state with lower property taxes?
These aren't failures. These are strategies. And they're a hell of a lot more useful than staring at "10 times your salary" and feeling like you've already lost.
Rule #4: You'll Need 80% of Your Pre-retirement Income
The Rule
The standard advice says you'll need about 80% of what you made while working to maintain your lifestyle in retirement. The thinking is that you won't have certain expenses anymore—you're not commuting, you're not contributing to a 401(k), you're not paying payroll taxes.
The Reality
Let me tell you what doesn't drop to 80%: your mortgage. Your electric bill. Your grocery bill. Your medication. Your car insurance.
And here's what the research actually shows that nobody wants to talk about: lower earners need to replace about 90% of their preretirement income to maintain their lifestyle. Higher earners only need to replace about 65% to 70%.
Why? Because if you're making $250,000 a year, you're spending money on a lot of things that do disappear or change in retirement—expensive work clothes, eating out for lunch every day, higher discretionary spending, bigger contributions to retirement accounts. If you're making $55,000 a year, almost all of that money is going to essentials: housing, food, utilities, insurance, healthcare. Those don't go away when you retire.
So the less you made during your working years, the higher percentage you need to replace in retirement. Read that again. The system is literally designed backwards for the people who need it most. The people who had the hardest time saving are the ones who need to replace the highest percentage of their income.
The Realistic
Build your actual budget. Not a percentage—real numbers based on your real life.
Sit down and list out what you'll actually spend. Housing: Will you still have a mortgage, or will it be paid off? If you're renting, what will that cost? Property taxes don't go away. Then there's healthcare. If you're retiring before 65, you need to bridge to Medicare, and that's expensive. Even after Medicare kicks in, you've got premiums, supplemental insurance, medications, co-pays. Food costs don't go down. Transportation—will you still have a car payment, and what about insurance and gas? Utilities, insurance, any remaining debt.
And then—and this is important—what do you actually want to do in retirement? Do you want to travel? Visit your grandkids who live across the country? Take up new hobbies? These things cost money. You're not retiring just to sit on your couch and watch TV. At least I hope not.
Once you have your real budget, ask yourself some hard questions. Can I pay off my mortgage before I retire? Should I move to a lower-cost area? Can I reduce my housing costs by downsizing or even getting a roommate? What can I cut without making myself miserable?
Here's what nobody wants to say out loud, but I'm going to: You might need to make different choices. Maybe you move to a state with lower property taxes. Maybe you downsize to a smaller place. Maybe you live with your adult children, or they live with you. Maybe you move to a more affordable city.
These aren't failures. These are strategies. And they're a whole lot more useful than looking at "80%" and just hoping it works out somehow.
Rule #5: The 4% Withdrawal Rule (Now 4.7%)
The Rule
This is probably the most famous retirement rule. It says you should withdraw 4% of your retirement savings in your first year of retirement, and then adjust that amount each year for inflation. If you do this, your money should last at least 30 years. The guy who created this rule recently updated it to 4.7% based on new research.
The Reality
Life doesn't work in neat 4% increments.
Markets crash. You get sick. Your daughter loses her job and needs help. Your furnace dies in the middle of winter. Your mom needs care. Your car breaks down. Your grandchild needs braces and your kid can't afford it. Life happens in retirement just like it happens now, except you don't have a paycheck to fall back on anymore.
Also, this rule assumes you have a big enough pile of money that 4% actually generates meaningful income. If you've got $100,000 saved, 4% is $4,000 a year. That's $333 a month. That's not replacing much income, especially when you remember from Rule #4 that you probably need to replace 90% of what you were making.
The Realistic
Build in flexibility and think about retirement in phases, not as one long flat line.
Here's what I mean. Your retirement is probably going to look different in your 60s than it does in your 70s, and different again in your 80s. So instead of withdrawing the same amount every year adjusted for inflation, what if you planned to be flexible based on both your age and what the market's doing?
Think about it this way: If you retire at 67, you're likely going to be most active in your late 60s and early 70s. You're healthy, you want to see your grandkids, maybe take some trips. You might spend a bit more during these years. Then as you move into your mid-to-late 70s and into your 80s, you might naturally slow down. You're not traveling as much. You're spending more time close to home. Your discretionary spending often goes down even as your healthcare costs might start creeping up.
The key is being willing to adjust based on what the market's doing too. It's about being smart and flexible with what you have so it lasts as long as you need it to.
And here's a radical idea that might actually make your retirement better: What if you worked a little bit in early retirement? Not grinding away at a job you hate, but doing something for 10 or 20 hours a week that brings in $500 to $1,500 a month?
I know, I know. You've been working for 40 years. The idea of "working in retirement" sounds like an oxymoron. But hear me out. Working a bit might actually make your retirement more sustainable and maybe even more enjoyable. It keeps you engaged, keeps you connected to people, keeps your brain sharp, and it reduces the pressure on your savings. You're not withdrawing as much, which means your money can grow more, which means it lasts longer.
This doesn't mean you're grinding until you drop. It means you're redesigning work on your own terms. Maybe you consult in your field for 15 hours a week. Maybe you do seasonal work. Maybe you work at a bookstore because you love books. Maybe you use AI to create some kind of digital income stream that doesn't require you to show up somewhere 40 hours a week.
The point is flexibility. You're not locked into one rigid withdrawal rate. You're adjusting based on your life, the market, your health, and what you actually want to be doing.
The Rule We Actually Need: The Resilience Rule
After reading through all of these rules from Kiplinger, here's what I realized sitting in my hotel room in Berlin this Christmas morning: We don't need updated versions of old rules that still don't fit most women's lives. We need an entirely different framework.
I call it the Resilience Rule: Build multiple streams of security—financial, social, and cognitive—and practice your retirement before you're forced to live it.
What does that mean in real terms?
First, know your Social Security reality. Not what you hope it might be, but what it actually will be. Log into ssa.gov today—not tomorrow, today—and look at your estimated benefit. That number is the foundation of your plan. Everything else builds from there.
Second, think about work differently. I've been working since I was 20. That's 42 years. I'm tired. But the idea of going from full-throttle work to complete stop scares me. Not financially—I'll be okay. But psychologically. What am I going to do with my time? Who am I if I'm not working?
So instead of thinking about "delaying retirement," what if we thought about redesigning work? What if you went to three days a week instead of five? What if you did consulting or project-based work where you're in control of your schedule? What if you worked seasonally? What if you learned to use AI—and yes, I'm serious about this—to create income in ways that didn't exist five years ago?
You don't need to be a tech genius to use AI. You just need to be curious enough to learn. AI can help you do things you couldn't scale before. It can help you create content, analyze data, provide services, generate income in ways that don't require you to be somewhere 40 hours a week.
Third, build your network now. The women I know who are thriving in retirement aren't necessarily the richest ones. They're the most connected. They have friends, community, purpose. And that community has real economic value too—shared resources, cheaper living arrangements, emotional support that prevents health problems that cost money.
Fourth, practice your retirement. Every vacation you take, every long weekend, every time you have a few days off—you're beta-testing retirement. What fills your time? What makes you feel good? What keeps your brain engaged? Because if you go from 40 hours a week of cognitive stimulation to sitting on your couch watching TV all day, your brain is going to turn to mush.
And finally, think in phases. You don't need one magic number that lasts from age 65 to age 95. You need a flexible strategy that adjusts as your life changes. Work part-time in your 60s. Live more fully in your early retirement when you're healthy. Simplify in your later years. Adjust when markets tank. Spend more when markets boom. Be flexible. Be resilient.
So Where Does This Leave You?
If you're earning less than $75,000 a year and you're feeling behind on retirement, I need you to hear this: You're not failing. The rules were never designed for your life.
But you're also not helpless.
You can calculate your real gap instead of chasing some arbitrary formula. You can build flexibility into your plan. You can work part-time if you need to or want to. You can reduce your expenses strategically by moving or downsizing. You can build your community now. You can practice your retirement before you're living it. You can think in phases instead of one finish line.
Will your retirement look like the ones in the magazines? Probably not. It might include part-time work. It might mean moving to a different area. It might mean being creative and flexible and brave.
But it can still be secure. It can still be dignified. It can still be joyful.
The key is starting where you are, with what you have, and building resilience instead of chasing somebody else's rules.
Because here's the real new rule, the one that actually matters: There is no one-size-fits-all solution. And that's actually freedom if you're willing to design your own path.
If you want to take the first steps in understanding where you are with your retirement planning, feel free to use our PROS+ Retirement Simulator or the 90-Day Quick Start Plan available on our website. Both tools are free of charge and 100% anonymous, so you don't have to worry about anybody reaching out to you trying to sell you something. We're here to educate, not to sell.