In Massachusetts, Sharon Cassidy, a divorced college professor who had single-handedly put her four children through college, began to step up saving for her own retirement in 1990. By then she was 52, and earning roughly $42,000 a year. Listening to the financial advisors who visited her college, she stashed most of her money in broad-based equity funds, and, by the end of 1998, she had managed to accumulate over $350,000. At that point, she felt she was in sight of her goal: retirement in four years, at age 62, with $500,000.
