Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Still, you never know when you may have planted a seed of an idea.
I have a friend like your mom - she gets SO anxious talking about her finances, because she has a deep-seated conviction that she can never get ahead, the result being that - she never gets ahead!
Still, for the sake of YOUR peace of mind, here's a little rough back-of-the-napkin math to look at:
Your mom makes $53k now.
Subtract about $5k for income taxes, $5k for car payments and insurance (just a Wild A** Guess here), and $12k for condo mortgage payments (you didn't specify whether that $1k/mo payment was just the mortgage or covered principle/interest/taxes/insurance).
That means, that outside of housing and car, she's living on about $31k/year or less.
Now, let's guess that there's maybe $6,000/year of fluff in that budget (the Europe trips, cable tv, current savings contributions, whatever her vices are).
So, if she had a paid condo, and a paid car (or lived somewhere with good public transit), she could live pretty comfortably (similarly to her current lifestyle without the fluff) on about $25k/year.
Now - let's suppose your mom stays in her job and her condo and works until she hits full retirement age at 66 years of age. Let's also say that by that time her condo has increased somewhat in value so that she has enough between the equity in the condo, and her savings, to buy an inexpensive condo or something outright in a less expensive area.
Her social security at that time would be $1420/mo x 12 = $17,040 a year, giving her a shortfall of $25k - $17k = $8k/year. She might be able to make up that $8k/yr shortfall by working part-time at some low-stress job, or ramping up her thrifting resales, or running some other cottage business.
If, instead, you apply the same parameters but she works until she is 70 to maximize her social security - her payments would be $1874/yr (rises 8% for each year delayed)and her annual income would be $22,488. That would leave her with a shortfall of just $2522/year.
Another option is, she decides to retire to a foreign country where her dollars will go farther. Ecuador is popular right now :
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/On-Retirement/2012/04/17/the-best-place-to-retire-overseas-on-a-budgetand according to this article, would fit her retirement budget.
I applaud you for looking at this stuff now, at your young age - you will never end up in a precarious position like your mom. IF you think you could tolerate her, you might look at our own future housing purchases with the possibility in mind that she might come to live with you at some point (a house with a granny flat, perhaps?).