At 54 years old, Sabrina thought she was doing something smart for her future. She trusted her ex when he told her he could grow her money through investments and stocks. Instead, she emptied her retirement account, paid penalties to access it early, and watched $85,000 disappear.
On top of that, after their relationship ended, her ex refused to leave her home. He lived there for a year and a half without paying, forcing her to sell the house just to regain control of her finances.
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Starting Over At 54
“I’m basically starting from scratch,” Sabrina said when she called into “The Ramsey Show” recently. A single mom with a special needs teenager, she told hosts she is now focused on one thing: making the right decisions going forward.
“I just want to make the right decisions going forward,” she said, “building for my retirement because I am 54.”
After selling her home, Sabrina was left with limited cash. She put $35,000 into a certificate of deposit that matures in March, $10,000 into a high-yield savings account, and about $1,200 into another savings account. Much of the home sale proceeds went toward cleaning up debt created during the fallout with her ex.
She still carried several obligations. That included $6,500 in credit card debt, a $13,000 car loan on a vehicle worth about $10,000, and a $10,000 attorney bill. The car alone came with a $486 monthly payment and nearly 100,000 miles, plus $8,500 in repairs over the past year.
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The advice she got from hosts George Kamel and Ken Coleman was straightforward. With cash available, the hosts urged her to eliminate the credit card balance immediately and then use the maturing CD to wipe out the car loan. Doing so would free up hundreds of dollars each month and simplify her finances fast.
“That saves you $486 a month immediately,” Coleman told her. “You would feel that.”
Once the debt was gone, the plan was to keep roughly $15,000 as an emergency fund and move forward debt-free.
A Painful Loss, But A Clean Slate
Sabrina also explained that she tried to recover the missing retirement money but eventually stopped chasing answers.
“As soon as I stood up to get an answer, it became, ‘Oh, I went into stocks,’ then, ‘No, real estate investments,’” she said. “Now he’s telling the attorneys that I agreed to putting it in a business and that business went defunct.”
Rather than pouring more money into legal discovery, she decided to walk away. “I don’t want to dump any more money on attorneys when I know I lost,” she said.
Kamel encouraged her to treat this moment as a reset. “Why don’t we call this a new slate,” he said. “This is post-ex Sabrina. She’s starting a new chapter. She’s got a lot of life ahead of her.”
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Retirement Isn’t Over, But It Changes
Sabrina earns about $50,000 from a W-2 job and another $20,000 to $30,000 from her organizing business, which brings in roughly $75,000 in gross revenue with very little overhead. Altogether, her income lands near $80,000 a year.
Starting retirement investing at 54 is not ideal, and no one sugarcoated that. The realistic expectation, she was told, is working longer than planned, possibly until age 68 or 70.
If she invests about 15% of her income, roughly $12,000 a year, she could still accumulate more than $500,000 by retirement, even starting from zero.
Getting Help With The Next Chapter
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The service is built for those ready to take their financial planning to the next level and includes free strategy sessions for people who want a clear plan instead of generic advice.
For Sabrina, the damage is done. The money is gone. But with debt wiped out, protections in place for her child, and a clear path forward, the focus now is on steady rebuilding instead of regret.
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