re: My pathetic and inadequate 17/18 year retirement window. Advice Welcomed.

Since you're self-employed, you qualify for a SEP rather than a plain vanilla traditional IRA. That's good, because SEP contribution limits are much higher than trad IRAs. The SEP limits are determined by your income...it's something like 25% of income or a max of $52K per year. (but go read the IRS pub on SEPs, please)

Most financial institutions (Fidelity, Vanguard, TIAA-Cref) can set up a SEP for you. It shouldn't require any more paperwork than a traditional IRA. Then set up a monthly electronic transfer into your shiny new SEP account...don't get stuck paying contract fees or front-loaded crapola. Like I said, TIAA-Cref will set up a SEP for you with very little paperwork and no BS. (It's a nonprofit corp managing the assets of 1,000s of university/college/hospital employees, including a crapload of business school professors).

How you invest once you've set up the SEP is another thread entirely. You can certainly pick a lifecycle fund, if that makes you comfortable.

But if you're gonna do $4K/mo for the next 15 years, you will still have WAY more retirement savings than the average American, even if the money experiences only modest to no growth.