A financially clueless single gal — that was me when I first started writing this column, years ago. At the time, it was trendy to be both.

Remember the infamous "I spent my down payment money on shoes" episode of "Sex and the City"? It was a funny celebration of frivolity over financial sanity. Plenty of us could relate.

People still joke about that episode today. But even now, many of the messages that single women get validate obliviousness around money, disguised as being free-spirited. (See "Confessions of Shopaholic," for example.)

All women are financially vulnerable, but single women face a disproportionate share of economic risk, according to a recent study by Liz Weiss and Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress (CAP).

So in honor of this coming weekend, I'd like to write a valentine to single women everywhere: Love yourself; love your money.

It's a message I wish I'd gotten when I was on my own and had far more control over my financial fate than I realized.

Oh, the ways I've paid

In my single daze, I was (literally) a card-carrying member of the "I'd rather buy shoes" club, and I regret every pair. Although I've come a long way, baby, I am still paying a price for my fiscal shortsightedness.

I'm now married and a mom, but I'm only a year out of all that debt I amassed.

I'm still trying to build up the retirement and personal savings I should have by now but don't because I was paying back debt.

And, oh, I never signed up for any company 401k plan, even when it was practically rammed down my throat.

I married another free spirit, and it has taken us the past eight years to get real financially.

If hindsight is 20/20, I should be able to explain what I was thinking then — or how I wasn't thinking.

Um. Well. Actually, it's hard to reflect back on those days without getting furious at myself.

I am now aware that there are many money traps people fall into — patterns of denial or avoidance of financial responsibility. My fuzzy fantasy was a cross between hoping it would all work out "somehow" and being afraid to take the reins.

What I've heard from other single women, including many of the Women in Red, is that the stupid Cinderella rescue fantasy still plays a role. "I run my own business. I own my own home, but I can't shake it," says Sharon, a single woman who lives on Long Island, N.Y. "I still think someone is going to come along and fix everything."

Why we have to secure our futures

Even before the dawning of this not-so-Great Recession that we're in, countless single women were taking charge of their lives, buying homes, starting businesses, even having children on their own.

Yet the bottom line for many single women today is bleak: 59% of all U.S. adults living in poverty are women, according to 2008 Census Bureau data. The poverty rate for married women is 6.2%. For single women, it's nearly 21%.

The recession is putting single women further at risk, according to the authors of the CAP study.

Although unmarried women represent less than half (46.5%) of all female workers, they account for 60.8% of female workers who are unemployed. The situation is worse for unmarried women who head families, most of whom are single mothers, who have an unemployment rate of 12.6%, about 3 percentage points above the national average for January.

So, not only are women overall lagging behind financially, unmarried women — who are often the sole support for themselves and their families — are even more likely to endure economic setbacks (especially in this economy) and lose financial ground.

Make a date

That's the reason for my valentine to you. Regardless of your plans this weekend, single gals, make a date with Chuck Schwab, or Mr. Fidelity or Seor Vanguard. Grab a friend and make it a double date.

I am still immeasurably grateful to Jill, one of the founding Women in Red members, who dragged me to Fidelity at 7:30 a.m. a few years ago so that we both could open retirement accounts.

Thanks to her commitment bolstering my own, I now have — wait, let's log on to my Fidelity account and check — I have more than $20,000 saved for retirement.

In one light, it's paltry and pathetic. But that, plus the equity in our home, puts me so much closer to where I should be than if I'd continued living the "carefree" single life.

So . . .

If you don't have a retirement account, open one now. Sign up for your company's 401k or open a Roth individual retirement account through the Fidelity or Vanguard Web sites. If you aren't sure which investments you want to go inside the accounts, pick low-cost index funds.

If you already have a retirement account, increase your contributions a teensy bit.

If you don't know a thing about investing, start with MSN Money's New Investor Center.

At the same time, open a savings account for emergencies. (Read more about what, why and where the heck to find the money.)

The most important thing we can do as women, for women, right now, is take our financial lives to heart.

Where does the money go?

And if you don't think you can save, I have an answer for that too.

I was playing around on Bundle.com (as in "Yes, you can save a bundle") — a new MSN Money partner site that shows what people are spending, based on actual credit card data supplied by Citi. The box on the left, in the shaded and striped areas, lets you compare spending by age, household and city.

So, ladies, that's how I know you've got room to cut. Here's how much single women with no kids and an annual income of between $20,000 and $40,000 — in three cities, in two age brackets — spend on general shopping and clothes shopping each month. Not even food, OK?

	Denver	New York	San Francisco
Single women, 26 to 35	$467	$872	$612
Single women, 36 to 49	$433	$972	$815

Granted, it's not a perfect sample. This doesn't capture people who live on cash or use their debit cards primarily. But it gives you a sense, and perhaps some inspiration, about places you can cut back — and invest in you.

If you're all set on these fronts, share the love: Send this column to a single woman you know and help her set up what she needs for her own security.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Related Links:

The economics of serial dating

Dating site CEO Brian Phillips shares his own spending and dating stories

'I make $100,000 a year' and other lies from online dating