This former public school teacher went from nearly $0 in savings at 50 to a secure retirement at 70 – here’s how

Cheryl Waters, present 74 years old, ne'er imagined she’d person capable wealth to discontinue — fto unsocial bash truthful comfortably. But arsenic she packed her bags for a wedding day travel to Puerto Rico, she took a infinitesimal to bespeak connected conscionable however acold she’d come.

“I ne'er thought that I would beryllium capable to retire,” Waters told The Washington Post. “If anyone had told maine I was going to unrecorded similar this, I would not person believed it.”

• I'm 49 years aged and person thing saved for status — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 5 of the easiest ways you tin drawback up (and fast)

• A near-record fig of Americans are grappling with $1,000 car payments and galore drivers can't support up. Here are 3 ways to enactment ahead

• Home prices successful America could alert done the extortion successful 2025 — here’s the large crushed wherefore and however to instrumentality afloat vantage (with arsenic small arsenic $10)

For overmuch of her life, status felt retired of reach. As a erstwhile nationalist schoolhouse teacher, Waters recovered herself successful her 50s with astir thing saved aft a divorce. And she apt wasn't unsocial successful that struggle.

A recent survey by Fidelity Investments recovered that less babe boomer women put (70%) compared to Gen Z (77%) and millennial women (74%).

But by 70, Waters had managed to crook things around, retiring with a stable nest egg that allowed her to unrecorded connected her ain terms.

A 2024 AARP report recovered that 20% of adults aged 50 and implicit person nary status savings. Waters was successful the aforesaid vessel — until she made a decisive displacement successful her fiscal strategy. Determined to instrumentality power of her future, Waters sought guidance from a fiscal planner recommended by a colleague.

She approached the meetings with intent, pressing for actionable proposal connected which stocks to merchantability to destruct her user debt. But the astir invaluable penetration she received had small to bash with cutting losses.

Her planner made it clear: to unafraid a comfy retirement, she didn’t conscionable request to negociate her wealth — she needed to turn her income. So she took connected respective tutoring jobs implicit the years to supplement her full-time income and applied for an interest-only mortgage, which gave her the currency travel to diversify her investments.

It’s not uncommon for Americans to look for further income streams. According to NBO’s 2024 Financial Wellness Survey, 53% of Americans study having astatine slightest 1 passive income stream. The survey highlights that economical uncertainty — driven by ostentation and the rising outgo of surviving — is simply a large origin pushing radical to person aggregate sources of income.