Lisa Croke began with $90,000 of debt, no savings and a team of two

Seven years before she spoke to the Washington Post, Lisa Croke’s marriage ended and she took stock. She had $20,000 of consumer debt. She had $70,000 of student loans. She had no savings, and by the paper’s account she knew very little about how retirement planning worked.

Croke, who was 50 when the Post published her story in January 2025, did not start with a stock tip or a budgeting app. She started by assembling what she calls her team: an accountant and a financial coach.

The questions she brought them were basic ones. What “employer matching” means, the extra money an employer pays into a retirement plan when the worker pays in. What a high-yield savings account is. She cleared her credit card debt, then opened an investment account with Fidelity and a second with Acorns, an app that rounds up everyday purchases and invests the change. She told the Post the app was a “nonthreatening” way to begin.

“I can talk to someone about finances. I don’t have shame anymore.” — Lisa Croke, to the Washington Post

Two more late starts

Croke was one of three women in the report, by the journalist Amy Rose Dobson, and the other two began later.

Cheryl Waters, 74, a former public schoolteacher, saw her retirement savings fall to almost nothing in her fifties after a divorce and some poor decisions. She went to a financial planner, took on tutoring for several years alongside her job, and retired at 70. She was planning trips to Puerto Rico and Paris.

“I never thought that I would be able to retire.” — Cheryl Waters, to the Washington Post

Marianne Nishifue, 66, a self-employed consultant, was in her fifties when her sister died in a car accident, leaving four young-adult children. Wanting a bigger cushion to help them, she took a friend’s advice and began trading stock options. She came to find it stressful. “I was trying to create my own index fund,” she said. She now works with an independent adviser and looks at her holdings as a whole.

Why this matters

Starting in your fifties is the usual thing, not the exception. The Post cites Fidelity Investments: two-thirds of women in the baby-boom generation began investing in their fifties or later.

The gap they are closing is real. A 2020 Brookings Institution study, also cited in the report, found that women have roughly 30 per cent less income in retirement than men. Nick Booth, the independent planner Nishifue uses, told the Post that the regret he hears most from clients is “I wish I would have started earlier.” That is an argument for this week, not for giving up.

The rules lean the same way. In the US, the Internal Revenue Service lets anyone aged 50 or over by the end of the year pay extra into a workplace plan such as a 401(k): an additional $8,000 in 2026, or $11,250 for those aged 60 to 63. In the UK the first thing to look at is your State Pension forecast (the government pension; Social Security is the US equivalent), and our guide, linked below, explains how to get it.

What the three have in common

None of this is financial advice, and a regulated adviser can look at your own position. But the pattern across the three women is plain.

• They asked. Each found a professional. Croke’s phrase for it, “her team”, is worth borrowing.
• Debt first, then investing. Croke cleared the cards before she opened an account.
• They made it automatic. Rounding up purchases is small. It is also a habit that needs no willpower.
• They kept it boring. Nishifue moved from picking stocks to a whole-portfolio view and found it less stressful.

Start with our guide to checking your State Pension forecast or Social Security statement, then finding lost pensions and retirement accounts. Both take an evening.

Croke told the Post she wanted to be a good example to her children, and to leave something behind. “Money is freedom, money is power,” she said.