“It’s confidence boosting to be in the same room or online group as other women claiming their power and autonomy with their money,” said Ms. Winfield, now 34. She went on to create Signum City, a fintech start-up that developed an app-based game to help young adults learn to invest.

Her financial journey mirrors the challenges many women face when investing for retirement: Their short-term financial needs have a way of eclipsing long-term goals. Across the country, women’s investing groups, from Meetup to clubs organized by the nonprofit BetterInvesting, are helping some women to focus on their finances in ways, their members say, where Wall Street firms, fund companies and financial advisers have fallen short.

Just 17 percent of women said planning for retirement was their top financial goal in a 2018 survey by Pimco, the Newport Beach, Calif., investment firm that manages $1.8 trillion for central banks, pension funds and financial advisers. Respondents ranked it behind goals like achieving financial stability, creating a wide-ranging financial plan and becoming financially independent.

Researchers cite myriad reasons, namely: Women’s longer life expectancy, lower wages, marital status, and responsibility for child care and caregiving. The challenge women often face is how to take a nest egg that is typically smaller than men’s and extend it to last their lifetime.

The disconnect between women’s priorities and what the financial services industry typically emphasizes — strategies to beat the market — is especially apparent when it comes to retirement. In Pimco’s survey, 72 percent of women, and 81 percent of millennial women, said the investing system was “set up to be confusing.” Women identified honesty, knowledge and transparency as the top values they sought in advisers and financial institutions.