The way you retire is unique to you. A financial planner explains how to build the retirement plan that best fits your needs.
Women retire with less. A lot less. According to a 2024 Prudential study, women have less than a third of the median retirement savings that men have. There are countless reasons why — the gender wage gap, caregiving responsibilities, the list goes on. But a change — of sorts — is coming: Nearly half of American women expect to inherit wealth in the next decade, and by 2030, women are expected to control over 60% of the world’s assets. That’s massive.
But it’s not enough to just control more money. We’ve got to get strategic about how we invest, how we draw down our assets, how we minimize taxes, and how we continue to build wealth. And many of us want to do all of this while leaving a meaningful legacy after we’re gone… How do we do it?
Hilary Hendershott has a few ideas. She’s the founder of Hendershott Wealth Management, a certified financial planner, and host of the “Love, your Money” podcast. On this week’s episode of the HerMoney Podcast, she sat down with Jean Chatzky to talk about what really goes into building a retirement plan that works, and lasts.
The Best Retirement Plan Starts With Your Mindset, Not Math
Jean Chatzky: It’s disheartening to hear that, still in 2025, women have less put away for retirement than men. I know there are a lot of elements here that have to do with life, but I also know that there are some things we could get better with if we got strategic about it. So, what are the top mistakes that you see women making with their retirement plans?
Hilary Hendershott: The first time I really internalized the message that nobody cares more about my money than me was profound. There are billions of people on the planet, and I’m the only one filling my retirement nest egg accounts. Mindset is critical. You can’t get there without an empowered and definite mindset.
And the second thing is, I would love for women to really build an evidence-based, very deep trust in the stock market. If you listen to the messages of the national financial news media, the stock market’s always terrifying. If it’s going up, it’s a bubble. It’s definitely going to burst. If it’s going down, it’s different this time. It’s never coming back up. Either way, you should be terrified. In reality, the stock market is the greatest generator of individual wealth in human history. So, taking the time to build that relationship and that deep trust, because time in the stock market really makes a huge difference.
Retiring Is the Most Expensive Day of Your Life: Plan Like It
Jean Chatzky: We’ve been on this path. Save, invest, save, invest, save, invest, save, invest. And now somebody says to you, “Okay, reverse engineer the entire thing. Make the money last. Spend it down. Do it tax effectively. Don’t run into Medicare penalties. Don’t run into difficulties by spending too much.” It’s incredibly daunting. How do you help people make that transition?
Hilary Hendershott: The day that you stop working is the most important day in your financial life. Because on that day, you are betting everything that what you have saved in a nest egg will outlive you. In our saving and investing years, we’re looking at the balances. I have 500,000, I have a million. The thing that becomes far more important than the balance of your accounts as you approach retirement is the amount that that balance can pay you in a sustainable way for the entire duration of your retirement.
The biggest mistake that can be made in retirement is to overspend the balance when the stock market is down. And so working with your spouse or partner, ensuring what your spending number is, keeping yourself surrounded with enough cash, but also learning the behaviors so you don’t have financial emergencies.
Final Word: The Right Retirement Plan Is The One That Works for You
Jean Chatzky: For women who are still struggling to grab hold of that confidence, what’s the first small step somebody can do today to start shifting their mindset?
Hilary Hendershott: The data tells us that women naturally invest better than men. So just know you’re starting higher up on the totem pole than you think you are, and that not everyone who says they know what they’re doing does. And the natural inclination for women to set it and forget it, and not make changes because of fear of the stock market, tends to have us perform better when it comes to investing.
So that’s a little feather in your cap. Just know that you’re probably doing better than you think you are, and that there are lots of resources and people who care about your financial future who can support you.
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