logo
I retired at 52 and only have enough money to be financially secure for the next year. I'm still happy with my decision

I retired at 52 and only have enough money to be financially secure for the next year. I'm still happy with my decision

Walter Green worked in IT for 30 years before retiring in 2024.
His job's retirement fund match and a six-figure inheritance allowed him to retire early.
Green said he doesn't mind working part-time or pulling from investments in the future.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Walter Green, 52, from Northwest Arkansas. It's been edited for length and clarity.
I officially retired from my 30-year career in technology at the end of 2024, at the age of 52.
When both my parents passed away, at 85 and 91 respectively, it recentered my priorities. I always thought I'd work until the typical retirement age, 65 or 70, but I realized I wanted to retire while I was still young and healthy enough to enjoy it.
I experienced euphoria after retiring, but it's not all easy.
I don't have enough money to go the rest of my life without working
My job gave me a generous retirement match, which I had contributed to for many decades. I also received a six-figure inheritance from my parents, which was the bump that made me really believe I could retire earlier than expected.
Still, it's not enough to stop working for the rest of my life. There's this widely accepted idea that retirement means you're done working for good, but I see it as a new phase for me to fill as I'd like.
It's a great season to take some time off and do jobs that perhaps pay less but can provide a lot of fulfillment.
Before retiring, I started tracking my costs very closely
Before retiring, I started using You Need A Budget or YNAB, an online service with a subscription fee. I wanted to truly understand how much money I needed to cover essential needs while feeling comfortable doing some extra fun things here and there.
There are some common retirement guideposts to follow, like the 4% rule or having 25x your income in savings, but for me, it felt most important to stick to my basics: food, healthcare, utilities, transportation, and veterinary care.
I've used websites such as Boldin, FI Calc, and Honest Math, which have free tools that allow me to view my savings aggregately, predict investment returns, and project future expenses.
Retiring was a scary decision, and it felt like a lot was at stake
I had some hesitation because what if I found myself in a tough financial position after I quit my job? I questioned whether I'd be able to go back to my old employer or even get a job as an older person with a career gap.
I also worried whether it was responsible to potentially impact my family — my wife, who does not work, and our three adult children, who depend on me — by making this decision.
The economy changes, personal things happen, and I have a general plan, but I am ready to tweak it as needed. An important aspect of my retirement plan is flexibility.
I'm loving my freedom, but it's been stressful spending money
I'm loving the slow mornings and freedom of retired life, but it's been stressful spending money without having a paycheck coming in. I have to keep reassuring myself that I have the financial resources to spend money and go do fun things.
I'm still fine-tuning my budget, but I find reassurance when I go back to my spreadsheet and see that I have at least enough money to be fully secure for the next year.
Despite not having a steady paycheck, I'm happy with my decision
I see retirement as a blank canvas of endless opportunity. I can choose to work again full-time, volunteer, or work part-time; it doesn't matter. It's a new chapter of life to find purpose, and I can't wait.
I probably think about budgeting and money more than I should, but I've redefined what retirement means to me.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Column: Shared kitchen business in Park Forest expands to larger facility in Lynwood
Column: Shared kitchen business in Park Forest expands to larger facility in Lynwood

Chicago Tribune

timea day ago

  • Chicago Tribune

Column: Shared kitchen business in Park Forest expands to larger facility in Lynwood

Five years ago, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, entrepreneur Fershawnda Green worried her business might not survive. Since then, her Poppin Plates enterprise has not only survived but expanded and continued assisting other businesses along the way. Poppin Plates provides licensed commercial shared kitchen space, which helps food service entrepreneurs move to the next level. It began offering 950 square feet of kitchen rental space in Park Forest. Last month, the culinary incubator held the grand opening at a larger site in Lynwood, a 4,000-square-foot, shared commercial kitchen with private suites and an enclosed parking lot for food truck operators. Green purchased the former Warsaw Inn at 2180 Glenwood-Dyer Road in Lynwood and did a complete renovation. Poppin Plates offers monthly memberships to renters of its commercial kitchen space. The business also offers culinary classes, workforce development services, food and beverage consulting and catering services. Green has come a long way since the early months of the pandemic when her incubator members dwindled to as low as two in Park Forest. Today she has 15 members there and five in Lynwood. The new Lynwood location positions her to accommodate 60 members at that site and as many as a total of 85 at the two locations, she said. Green added the second commercial kitchen space site because the business had outgrown its initial Park Forest location and after listening to the needs and wants of her members. 'We needed a new space, a larger space where everybody has their own private space,' she said. She added food truck parking to provide her food truck businesses with the private secure parking space they lacked, she said. Her Lynwood site is the only one in the south suburbs with food truck parking and a commissary. She presently has five food trucks and is looking to expand. The site can accommodate 25 food trucks, she said. Green, who has more than 25 years of experience in the food service business, has worked as a chef's assistant at Norwegian Cruise Line, second chef at the former Argosy Empress Casino and restaurant manager and general manager at Chicago area restaurants. She launched her first incubator after observing a shortage of commercial cooking space in the south suburbs while providing consulting services to other food service entrepreneurs. Poppin Plates targets food service entrepreneurs just getting started as well as those looking to scale their businesses. It requires members to have a state of Illinois business license, sanitation manager certificate, appropriate local license, a retail sales tax identification number and proof of liability insurance. Green started Poppin Plates first incubator roughly a year before the pandemic hit. A decision she made to focus more on securing more corporate catering contracts helped her persevere through the pandemic, she said. 'I was scared back then,' she said with a chuckle. 'But the pandemic took my catering business to another level. It catapulted me to be able to think big to the Lynwood situation of actually owning my own.' She said her business is teaching others if they run their businesses the right way, they can also be successful. The catering portion of Poppin Plates works with 300 to 400 clients a year, and 90% of catering revenue now comes from corporate clients, Green said. Among her corporate clients are Advocate South Suburban Hospital, Advocate Trinity Hospital and Advocate Christ Medical Center, Green said. 'They have done catering services for several of our events,' said LaDonna Daniels, manager for medical staff services for Advocate South Suburban and Advocate Trinity. 'They assisted us significantly during COVID when many of our vendors were unable to accommodate. Her and her team were phenomenal. She has been a consistent vendor with our company.' Green finds it fulfilling helping other businesses grow and succeed. 'Oh my God, it makes me feel real good,' she said, adding roughly 10 businesses that were in her incubator have gone on to start their own brick and mortar enterprises at sites in the Chicago metropolitan area, Phoenix, Arizona and Atlanta. Sanethia Logan, owner of Logan Prime Executive Catering, is among Poppin Plates' incubator members in Lynwood. Logan Prime Executive Catering provides luxury upscale catering for corporate clients, caters weddings and other private celebrations, and also provides private chef services. She also has a food truck that sells upscale street food at the Lynwood incubator site. She initially operated out of the Park Forest site. Logan has learned important lessons from Green. 'She taught me food costs, how to price my services and how to scale my business,' she said. 'Menu building that was a big one for me.' She said Green taught her the importance of having a diversified catering business. Logan initially offered soul food but has expanded to also include other cuisines sought by clients from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, she said. Saif Hannoush, founder of Noosh Catering, also rented space at the Park Forest site before moving to the Lynwood location. His business caters for corporate and private events and sells ready-to-go boxes for team meetings, gifts and small events. It offers a variety of food but specializes in Mediterranean cuisine and offering 'food styling services' that entail using fruits, vegetables, flowers and risers to creatively design and set up food tables. He shared the story of how Green helped him when two of the people who'd agreed to assist him with catering a wedding for 200 people, canceled the day before. Green saw him looking stressed and asked what was wrong. She responded by helping him prepare for the event, working with him late that night up until 10 the next morning, he said. 'She's amazing,' he said. 'She's really a good person who likes for everyone to succeed.' He has observed how she manages people and learned from that, among other lessons. 'She taught me a lot, that you need to work hard and smart and focus on your clients, so they trust you and want to work with you more,' he said. Besides helping up-and-coming food service entrepreneurs, Green is also focused on sparking interest in the culinary arts among middle school students. She teaches the culinary arts program for sixth, seventh and eighth graders at Dolton Elementary District 149's middle school. 'We do it for the whole school year,' she said. 'Every 10 weeks, we rotate students. They learn basic food knowledge, measurement how to read recipes, how to work safely in the kitchen, proper temperatures' and they cook. 'Once they start cooking, the kids get really excited,' said Kenneth Scott, associate superintendent. 'They have cooked for our board of directors and fed us during a board meeting. It's just good to have kids have exposure to different career paths.' Green couldn't agree more and is certainly happy with the career path she chose and helping others do the same.

Vantage Data Centers Completes Industry's First Euro-Based Data Center Asset-Backed Securitization (ABS) with €640M Transaction
Vantage Data Centers Completes Industry's First Euro-Based Data Center Asset-Backed Securitization (ABS) with €640M Transaction

Business Wire

timea day ago

  • Business Wire

Vantage Data Centers Completes Industry's First Euro-Based Data Center Asset-Backed Securitization (ABS) with €640M Transaction

DENVER & LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vantage Data Centers, a leading global provider of hyperscale data center campuses, today announced it has raised €640 million in securitized term notes, marking the first-ever euro-based securitization of data center assets in Continental Europe. The transaction includes an additional €80 million in unfunded Variable Funding Notes. The Class A-2 Notes are rated A-, and the Class B Notes are rated BBB- by Standard & Poor's and Scope Ratings. This transaction follows Vantage's success last year with the first-ever EMEA data center ABS completed in British pound sterling. The notes will be used to refinance four data centers in Germany, two in Offenbach, Frankfurt, and two in Berlin, all of which are fully leased to hyperscale customers. The refinancing is part of Vantage's wider efforts to further expand its presence in the EMEA region and accelerate time to market to meet mounting demand for AI and cloud capacity. Surplus funds will be allocated toward capital expenditures and broader corporate initiatives. The notes have an anticipated five-year repayment date. 'The issuance of the first euro-denominated ABS in the data center sector marks a significant milestone in digital infrastructure financing. Having previously issued the first data center ABS in both North America and EMEA (sterling-denominated), Vantage continues to showcase our innovative approach to capital markets and our ability to unlock new funding vehicles to fuel our global expansion,' said Rich Cosgray, senior vice president, global capital markets for Vantage Data Centers. Vantage was represented by Clifford Chance LLP, and the transaction was led by Barclays and Deutsche Bank as active Joint Lead Managers. The transaction was supported by ING and Natixis as Joint Lead Managers and ABN Amro, Banco De Sabadell, SMBC and Societe Generale as Co-Managers. Barclays acted as Sole Structuring Advisor and Sole Green Structuring Advisor, and the transaction achieved a Green Bond designation via a Second-Party Opinion (SPO) from Morningstar Sustainalytics. The funds raised will contribute to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will facilitate the innovation of next-generation sustainable solutions aimed at reducing Vantage's environmental impact. For more information, please refer to the company's Green Bond Framework. Over the last 12 months, Vantage has raised €2.2 billion in new debt financing for its EMEA platform. For more information about Vantage's growing EMEA footprint, please visit: About Vantage Data Centers Vantage Data Centers powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world's well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across five continents in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands. For more information, visit Nothing in this press release constitutes an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the notes in any jurisdiction, and there shall not be any sale of the notes in any state or jurisdiction in which the offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

Beyond Yoga Puts Lululemon and Athleta on Notice With Bigger Store Format
Beyond Yoga Puts Lululemon and Athleta on Notice With Bigger Store Format

Yahoo

time5 days ago

  • Yahoo

Beyond Yoga Puts Lululemon and Athleta on Notice With Bigger Store Format

Beyond Yoga is stepping out, cutting the ribbon on a bigger store concept in Greenwich, Conn., on Friday and preparing an assortment that really lives up to its name. It's Beyond Yoga's first brick-and-mortar store on the East Coast and a big moment for the brand, which Levi Strauss & Co. bought in 2021 and which is now being prepped for a growth spurt that would put it into direct competition with Lululemon and Athleta at scale. More from WWD Revenue Rises at Lululemon in Q1, CEO Calvin McDonald Bullish Despite Cautious U.S. Consumer Why TikTok Can't Stop Talking About Lululemon's 2-in-1 Dress and Its Styling Frenzy With Shoes: The $148 Debate, Explained Authentic Brands Group Is Buying Dockers for $311 Million Leading the way is Nancy Green, who oversaw Athleta as it grew from 39 to 175 stores and has been putting that experience to work since becoming Beyond Yoga's chief executive officer last year. Green has been using her own particular blend of art and science to set the brand up for its next step. The arrival in Greenwich, for instance, is no accident. The company knows from its e-commerce business that the greater New York area is its largest market and used that data to guide it to the wealthy enclave. 'There's a big intuitive piece to this too,' Green told WWD. 'There's the data on where the bulk of our customer fans are currently, and then there's intuition. Does that make sense? Does that feel right? Because you can go into a market and there's multiple places you could open. We're opening in Boston [this year] and we can see where that customer bubble is in the Boston area. And there's multiple choices where we could go. We're going to Seaport because we stand there, we watch, we see our customer walking the streets. 'The other piece that's important is, Does the space feel right? That's also intuitive,' she said. 'Maybe it's not the right location or you need to wait for the right location. We're not going to go in just because the data shows us that that's probably where we should be.' Both sides of Green's brain aligned on the Greenwich store, a 2,760-foot-space that also has room to hold events and tap into that 'wellness-forward lifestyle' customer the brand targets. 'It's gorgeous,' Green said. 'Light oak floors, very natural elements and a lot of wood, a lot of very organic shapes, curves. The main reason for the larger format is that the line is expanding quite a bit. We needed a larger space to showcase the breadth of the assortment and to really just show the best expression of the brand. We're also [planning to use] these new spaces as community hubs, whether it's fitness events that we do in the store, community events, whatever is right for that store. We create very strong local partnerships with various studios.' The store comes with a new logo and is at the vanguard of a bigger rollout — both in retail and in terms of Beyond Yoga's assortment, which all includes or ties back to its signature Spacedye fabric. While the 20-year-old business has long had workout-ready gear and dresses, the collection has been growing rapidly lately. Puffer jackets were added last year. In August, the assortment reaches out more with wide-leg bottoms, vegan leather, sweaters, cashmere wool blends, varsity-inspired prep looks, styles for the trail and more. Beyond Yoga is done tiptoeing and is going even further beyond yoga with more looks that work from the studio to work to the street to the airport and everywhere else. 'First and foremost, we are a lifestyle brand that serves an active woman and man's lifestyle,' Green said. 'So we think about what are the things that they do? What do they need? Well, it starts with the activities that they do.' With the Greenwich opening, Beyond Yoga has eight doors and is expanding to 14 by the end of the year. Earlier this year Green said the brand could have 'at least 200 stores' over time. 'This is our 2.0 in stores,' Green said of the Greenwich location. 'This is a new concept. We are going to test it and we are going to nail it. We have to iterate and tweak some things as we learn and then we nail it and then we scale it. So test, iterate, nail it and scale it.' Best of WWD Macy's Is Closing 66 Stores in 2025 — Here's the List, Live Updates Inside the Demise of Lord & Taylor COVID-19 Spikes Elevate Retail Concerns

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store