I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and probably retire by 55 thanks to disciplined dollar-cost averaging into a diversified pool of index funds

The worst thing about managing your finances as a never-married woman is that it's all on you. The best thing? It's all on you.

Without so much as opening an Excel spreadsheet, unmarried, childless women are ahead of the game. No paying for daycare, college, weddings. Your income may be less than that of a couple, but your expenses are lower, too. You avoid the really bad stuff, like partners who hide money, buy dumb things, and possibly drive the relationship toward divorce, the single-worst financial move for men and women. You also escape the temptation to cede financial responsibility, which rarely is a winning a strategy no matter how competent and trustworthy your other half may be. Note: if you don't know how to pay the cable bill, that's not good.

Once never-married women do open that spreadsheet, they are met by a growing body of research which shows women are better investors than men. Scholars Brad Barber (University of California, Davis) and Terrance Odean (University of California, Berkeley) write that women outperform men as investors by roughly one percent per year. This is primarily the result of overconfidence in men, which causes them to trade more frequently than women, who tend to stick to long-term strategies. Set it and forget it.

Long-term strategies are important because women live longer than men, by five years on average, meaning, despite your best efforts never to be alone, if you're a woman, you will be. A Survey conducted by the Stanford Center on Longevity Sightlines Project found that 58% of women age 75 and older report being the sole financial decision maker for their household. Many roads lead to this statistic, but never-married women arrive prepared, cable bill paid in full.