Wiktionary
n. A large sum of money one has saved over a considerable number of years.
Usage examples of "life savings".
Kiddie, by then in her 40s, twice married with a couple of daughters, daringly used her life savings and a bank loan to buy the company.
Bert the cop sat at the old wooden desk and finished counting out the ten-dollar bills that represented Lister's life savings.
The settlement took about half our life savings and we were already deeply in debt with legal bills, but I knew that if I stayed healthy, I could make enough money to take care of my family and pay those bills after I left office.
Mass hysteria, maybe even runs on banks as people realize that their life savings are vulnerable.
That one old gent who died after drawing out his life savings won't work as a murder victim either.
The sum amounted to a good part of the Clintons' life savings at the time (and the settlement specified that they could not pay it out of their legal defense fund, but had to write a personal check, although an insurance policy paid for part of it).
Those people had lost sizable fractions of their life savings and not known whom to blame for it.