There are a lot of women who don't think they can become prosperous on their own. They think a man is a plan.

"As a single thirty-something female, I am growing increasingly disgusted with female friends who keep putting off financial planning -- everything from contributing to a 401(k) to buying a house," one reader wrote to me. "They say, 'This will all be taken care of when I get married.' These are grown women with real jobs who seem to think the little black dress they use to potentially attract 'Mr. Right' is a better investment than real estate."

So should you wait to make major financial decisions until you get married? You'd better say no, because the reality is that Prince Charming may never come. Or when he does, he's likely to be supporting his first wife and their children. Or he may have two nickels to rub together, but one of them belongs to somebody else.

The fact is, an increasing number of women will end up managing money on their own because they've been divorced or widowed or have never married. Consider this:

• Although the gap between male and female life expectancy has been closing, women still outlive men on average (which closed from 5.4 years in 2002 to 5.3 years in 2003). The average age at which a married woman will be widowed is fifty-eight. (It's fifty-nine for women in a second marriage). A longer life expectancy for a woman means she has a longer time to accumulate wealth but also a longer retirement period to fund. While a woman who reaches her mid-sixties can expect to live approximately twenty more years, her salary, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, remains on average about three-quarters that of a man's.

• Women spend an average of eleven years out of the workforce caring for a relative or children. That time is usually spent not saving for retirement. Women, therefore, have to save what they can when they can while working in the event that they do end up leaving their job to take care of a child or an aging relative.

• Women spend as many years caring for their elderly parents as they do raising their children. Research by the National Alliance for Caregiving found that nearly three-fourths of all caregivers for people over the age of fifty are women. Forty-one percent of these women are caring for children at the same time they are caring for elderly adults. Further, even if women have brothers with whom they might share the work, daughters spend significantly more time and money providing care for elderly parents than sons do.

• For typical women of retirement age, Social Security accounts for more than half their income. The average Social Security check in 2004 was $955 a month. Could you live on that?

For African-American women, the news is even more disconcerting. Although African-American women have made significant economic progress in recent decades, many still lag behind in most key economic indicators compared with non-African-American women, according to a report commissioned by the National Council of Negro Women and the Fannie Mae Foundation.

Some key findings of that research include:

• Half of African-American women say they are just getting by or struggling. Forty-one percent have household incomes of less than $30,000, compared with 33 percent of all women.

• Two out of three African-American women are solely responsible for their family's financial planning. African- American women are more likely to be solely responsible for their household finances in part because they are less likely to be married (54 percent of all women were married compared with 28 percent of African-American women).

• Only 41 percent of African-American women own their homes compared with 66 percent of all women. Most would like to own their own homes, but often don't know where to start.

• Forty-five percent of African-American women have children under age eighteen living in their household. Of those women, 42 percent are single mothers.

All these statistics show that women can't afford to wait for a man to plan their financial future. Don't wait to get married to buy your home. Don't worry that Mr. Right won't like your house. If he doesn't, you can sell and move.

It makes no financial sense to forgo the possibility of accumulating home equity waiting on the right man to come along. If you wait and never find a partner, you'll be a renter without a house, or a man.