Personal Finance

I’m a 51 year old recently divorced nurse with no retirement savings. Can I save $1 million by the time I am 64?

Christy Bieber

Published: February 7, 2025 4:42 pm

By the time you are in your 50s, you should ideally have around six times your annual salary saved. Unfortunately, not everyone can make that happen.

One 51-year-old Reddit user is among those without the necessary amount invested. The original poster (OP) said she was a stay-at-home mother who just got a divorce. She had counted on her husband to save for retirement, but when they ended the marriage, he kept the retirement account with $175K in it and she got the family home with $300,000 in equity.

Now, she’s 51, working as a nurse, and earning $100,000. She’s opened a 401(k) and said her company offers a 50% match on her contributions. The good news is that she has almost all of her debt paid down, but the bad news is that she’s getting started really late. She’s hoping that she can get herself into a good spot by the time she’s 65 — but is that likely to be possible?

Can you catch up by 65 if you’re behind on retirement investing?

The OP’s ability to retire by 65 is going to depend on how much income she hopes to have, as well as what she does in the coming years. 

If she’s making $100K now, she should be making around $131,947 by the time she reaches the age of 65, assuming a 2% average annual raise. It’s a good rule of thumb to have 10 times your final income saved before you retire, so let’s assume that the OP would need a nest egg of around $1.31 million to be in good shape. 

The OP said she’s thinking of selling the house, paying cash for a new place worth around $200K, and investing the other $100K. So, if she starts with $100,000 invested and earns a 10% average annual return, how much would she need to invest by 65 to end up with $1.31 million?

The Investor.gov calculators show she’d need to save around $2,771.08 per month to be on target. That’s about $33,252.96 per year so that would be just over 30% of her income. However, she does get an employer match, and contributing to a 401(k) comes with tax breaks so things may not be as bad as they seem.

• If her employer doesn’t cap her match and she invests $1,800 a month, her employer would put in the other $900 monthly so she’d be pretty close to where she needs to be. 
• If the $1,800 per month she invests saves her 22% on her taxes, the $4,752 tax break she gets means the contribution would only reduce her take-home pay by around $16,875.

That’s not very much money to invest with a $100K income and with no debt. Now, if her employer caps her match, she’d need to invest a little more, or get by with a little less — but she could still be pretty close to where she needs to be.

The bottom line is that the OP isn’t doomed — she can still have her ideal retirement with the recommended amount saved by age 65. She just has to be willing to make the sacrifices to do it. 

You should take charge of your own retirement savings

The OP is obviously going to have to make a lot of sacrifices to try to save enough to retire at 65 with plenty of money.

Things would have been easier for her if she’d invested throughout her career. This is why it is so important for stay-at-home parents to understand their options for retirement investing, including investing in spousal IRAs.

A financial advisor can provide invaluable help to couples when one person stays home to make sure that everyone’s needs are met even if the worst happens and the marriage ends. The OP may also want to talk with an advisor now to make sure she’s running the numbers right and making the most informed choices about how she can still achieve a secure future.