I’m 40, just divorced with $85,000 income and nothing saved. Can I really become a multimillionaire by 65?

1 hour ago 1

Danielle Liverance

Thu, May 28, 2026 astatine 11:31 AM CDT 5 min read

A precocious divorced caller phoned Ramsey Everyday Millionaires with a acquainted mid-life mathematics problem: 21 years of matrimony gone, $85,000 successful yearly income, and astir thing saved. The host's effect was startlingly upbeat. "The biggest happening you person to flooded is not the mathematical situation of being good by property 65, due to the fact that that's a laydown. We tin decidedly are going to beryllium fine. You're going to beryllium a multimillionaire."

Quick Read

Investing 15% of $85,000 annually ($15,000/year) astatine a blimpish 10% instrumentality reaches $1.4M by 65, but ostentation cuts purchasing powerfulness successful fractional to astir $750K successful today’s dollars.
This program works for anyone starting astatine 40 with zero savings if they support a 15% savings complaint for 25 years, but collapses beneath $500K astatine a 5% savings rate.
A caller survey identified 1 azygous wont that doubled Americans’ status savings and moved status from dream, to reality. Read much here.

If you are anyplace adjacent this caller's situation, the stakes are concrete. Believe the projection blindly and you whitethorn under-save due to the fact that the aboriginal looks automatic. Dismiss it and you whitethorn springiness up connected status wholly due to the fact that $0 astatine 40 feels terminal. The existent mathematics sits successful between, and it hinges connected 1 presumption astir radical ne'er stress-test.

The verdict: the projection is realistic, but hardly

Ramsey's fig is defensible. Investing 15% of $85,000, astir $1,000 a period oregon $15,000 a year, with nary raises and nary leader match, compounds to astir $1.4 cardinal by 65 astatine a 10% yearly return. Push that instrumentality to 11% oregon 12% and the fig climbs toward $1.6, $1.7, oregon $1.8 million, with $2 cardinal imaginable if maturation runs hot.

Read: Data Shows One Habit Doubles American’s Savings And Boosts Retirement

Most Americans drastically underestimate however overmuch they request to discontinue and overestimate however prepared they are. But information shows that people with 1 habit person much than treble the savings of those who don’t.

The 10% presumption holds up against the humanities record. The S&P 500 ETF SPY (NYSEARCA:SPY) returned 257% implicit the past 10 years, which works retired to astir 13% annualized earlier inflation. The long-run humanities mean for U.S. large-cap stocks sits person to 10%. So the projection is blimpish against the past decennary and astir successful enactment with the past century.

Here is the drawback the big glossed over. CPI conscionable printed 332.4, with monthly ostentation moving astatine 0.6%. Over 25 years, adjacent 2.5% ostentation cuts purchasing powerfulness by astir half. A nominal $1.4 cardinal astatine 65 buys what astir $750,000 buys today. Still life-changing for idiosyncratic starting astatine zero. Just not Bentley money.

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