# He had been thinking **Published by:** [TerleckiSylvia](https://paragraph.com/@portfolioday/) **Published on:** 2022-07-25 **URL:** https://paragraph.com/@portfolioday/he-had-been-thinking ## Content He had been thinking about retiring for a few years leading up to the pandemic -- he wasn't finding the work as fulfilling as it used to be and his financial adviser gave him the green light. And then a few months into the pandemic, he requested a voluntary layoff. "When the option came up that I could retire now and still get paid for six months, that's not bad." Since he was 56 when he retired in 2020, he planned on using his non-retirement accounts to live on to avoid any early-withdrawal penalties. "At the beginning of this year, as the stock market started going down and prices started going up, I was thinking 'this could make things a little more challenging than I would like them to be.'" * Donaldson had always considered working part-time in retirement to stay active and try new things, and when a recruiter reached out to him for a full-time contractor job at an aerospace company, he decided to go for it. "It removes any kind of concern that I had with watching my nest egg get whittled down." ## Publication Information - [TerleckiSylvia](https://paragraph.com/@portfolioday/): Publication homepage - [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@portfolioday/): More posts from this publication - [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@portfolioday): Subscribe to updates - [Twitter](https://twitter.com/TerleckiSylvia): Follow on Twitter