For those in their 40s, navigating finances should mean putting an emphasis on retirement

For 48-year-old Rowan Childs of Wisconsin, a recent divorce turned her financial life upside down.

“Initially, I was really nervous and had a lot of anxiety about it, but ultimately now I feel so much more empowered,” Childs told CBS News.

Like others in their 40s, Childs, who runs her own literacy nonprofit, was already anxious about juggling personal debt and putting away college tuition for her two children. She then joined the roughly half of married women around her age in the U.S. who have dealt with a divorce, a seismic event that can jeopardize retirement planning.

“That has completely changed my initial vision, you know?” Childs said. “…Where am I going to be in my 60s or my 70s or 80s?”

Childs said retirement wasn’t necessarily something she thought about when she was first married.  

“It was too far away, I think,” Childs said. “Definitely looking at what my parents were doing, though, was definitely something that I was observing.”

Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at the New School for Social Research in New York City, has a sobering perspective.

“People who are in their 40s and 50s will do worse than their parents and their grandparents,” Ghilarducci said.

Ghilarducci explains that those two previous generations could at least bank on government-sponsored retirement programs.

“Two generations, because people had grandparents that were living through an expansion of Social Security and Medicare,” Ghilarducci said.

Both of those programs are now facing funding challenges, something Childs considered when she had to make a series of tough financial decisions. The costliest was to buy her ex-husband’s share of their Wisconsin home by borrowing more than $100,000 from her 401(k).

It was a decision partly spurred by the desire to keep her daughter in the same school district.

“To me, it didn’t make sense to sell the house and then buy a house in the same school district, probably at even more,” Childs said.

Borrowing from a retirement plan, as Childs did, should be a last resort, because if you lose your job, the loan must be repaid in full or you may have to pay taxes and penalties. And if you’re in your 40s, paying for a child’s college should take a back seat to protecting your own savings. That may come across as tough love, but otherwise you might end up relying on your children later on. 

“Jokingly, I told my kids I could move in with them,” Childs said. “…My son was like, ‘Well, maybe you could live close by.'”

The key in your 40s is to take deep breaths, regardless of the challenges.

“Relax,” Ghilarducci said. “Planning for retirement is best for the daylight hours, not in the middle of the night. And when you wake up, take some action steps. Worrying is not action.”

With plenty of time to get back on her feet, Childs says that she has finally stopped worrying.

“Maybe working longer could be on the table,” Childs said. She is also entertaining the possibility of working part time later in life.  

“I think outside the box,” she adds. “…I don’t necessarily know exactly know how I’m going to get there, but if I see something, or that’s what I want, I often will find a way.”

Jill Schlesinger

Jill Schlesinger, CFP® is the Emmy-nominated business analyst for CBS News. She covers the economy, markets, investing and anything else with a dollar sign on TV, radio (including her nationally syndicated radio show), the web and her blog, “Jill on Money.” Prior to her second career at CBS, Jill spent 14 years as the co-owner and chief investment officer for an independent investment advisory firm. She began her career as a self-employed options trader on the Commodities Exchange of New York, following her graduation from Brown University.