Boston Gal's Open Wallet

Single people are now 96 million strong and make up 43 percent of the adult population, up from 28 percent four decades ago. Nearly half are over age 40, including 13 million who have never married. Those figures have swelled as people divorce more often, live longer or simply choose not to marry.

That means single people are commanding more attention from financial planners and companies looking to cater to their needs — and even the occasional magazine cover.

“It’s still mostly couples who seek retirement planning, but more singles are starting to come forward,” says Eleanor Blayney, consumer advocate for the nonprofit Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

With no spouse to rely on, extra precautions are needed in order to be well-positioned for retirement. That holds especially true for women because they live longer. Three of every four single people age 65 or older are women.

Klea Theoharis, a 54-year-old investor relations consultant from Queens, N.Y., has been a diligent saver ever since her mother told her as a young child about the need to be self-sufficient. She reckons she has saved an average 30 percent of her pay each year and now has a comfortable cushion for retirement.

But she is surrounded by single women in her condo development who are struggling because they didn’t plan well. One has burned through her money, another had to go back to work after retiring early, a widowed neighbor doesn’t know what to do with her money, and still another is divorced and doesn’t understand investing.

“Just being around all these older single women and seeing them suffer, trying to make ends meet, I just feel a little education and a lot of retirement planning would have gone a long way,” she says.

I have been unemployed since February. I have also been incredibly busy.

My last job lasted one afternoon. I showed up at a large parking lot in a semi-remote area with a group of other job seekers. In a large area cordoned off with orange traffic cones, we walked around wearing fake suicide bombs and emitting low-level radiation. Our job was to test bomb-detection equipment. I earned $44.

After that, even temporary work petered out. I am not unemployable. I have a master’s of fine arts and spent two years in the Peace Corps. All that looks fine on my résumé. But there are also gaps in my work history: long empty months punctuated with only temporary periods of employment. I have had lots of opportunities to practice glossing that over for potential employers.

The truth is, I don’t have a lot of real-world career experience. I worked my way through college as a baby sitter, sandwich-maker, camp craft director and nursing-home aide. After graduation, I held to my chest a spotty collection of skills sprinkled liberally with artistic theory and personal vision.