At the time (March 2009, S&P500 bottom), my NW was 150k most of which was "good money" in taxable accounts. I was spending under $7000/year out of which $1500 were "wants" (martial arts training). At the time, I had a 9(*) year history/experience of spending under $7k/year. Half of this time (2000-2004) living as a single and half of it being married/living with another person with the same budget. I also had the established ability to make somewhere between $500-1000/month, scalable at will, by working some 4-8 hours per week [doing copy-editing]. I knew that the market was at least fairly valued if not slightly undervalued lending some confidence in the 4% rule. I was also involved with a non-profit being one of the founders.
(*) Actually this could be extended back to 1995(**) if you allow the ability to live in student dormitories. However, as these are usually only available to students, I don't usually include it even though I was already very frugal. If you include this experience, I had what amounts to 14 years of frugal <$7k experience already.
(**) Indeed, it could be extended even further since I lived at home with my parents before that but at that time I wasn't paying rent. OTOH, my income was pretty low too. I moved out when I was 20 or so.
At the time, 2009, I was quite cognizant that networth is too simplistic of a measure and that ready cashflow is really what makes or breaks FIRE. Since then I've yet to draw on my finances. See
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7869
I got married in 2006. We decided to split income 50/50 for tax reasons. The accounting is easier that way. Technically this has provided a safety buffer but I've never relied on it. Indeed, if we have gone with a more modern [millennial] split where people just share expenses rather than income, I'd be rather richer today since I've subsequently made quite a bit more money personally, but whatever ...
Post-ERE ...
I had enough FI-money to quit the copy-editing to focus on the ERE book. So I did that... in early 2010.
The ERE book turned out to sell more than the 50 copies I originally envisioned it would sell, in fact much more. Turns out, I've been making between $25k and 35k every year from that since 2011. Never expected that. Not sure how long this will continue. One the plus side, as far as my income is concerned, there are several [very big] bloggers using the ERE book as an inspiration for talking about extreme (50%+) savings, resulting in links back to the original source. On the minus side, a lot of my ideas are now becoming common knowledge and so this might not last. I'm already getting negative comments that my ideas can be found in a better form elsewhere ;-P Ha! Yeah, no shit, selling and presenting ideas are much easier than inventing them. So this is a good example of how
impact and income don't always correlate in the long run. Anyway ...
Also, between 2012 and 2015 I had the opportunity to work in trading. I didn't get rich but maybe not surprisingly the salary [in industry] was somewhat better than in academic research. Since I was already FI, I could save 100% of my salary (or rather 50% since I was sharing it was DW, remember) including the royalties on top making my savings rate quite in excess of 100%+. Not too hard to imagine how someone who can FI on a salary in 5 years can "double up" on a higher salary in 3-4 years. Especially combined with a market run-up.
The expenses from moving from an RV in California to an apartment in Chicago stayed the same. Buying a house predictably lowered them as I've been telling the "but only if you live in an RV"-clowns all along. As a result, I'm currently at ~0.8% SWR. Together we're slightly over 1% SWR combined.
Was it luck ... or just applied ERE principles?
In any case, I'm back to "not working" since 11/2015, while DW is currently playing career until whenever she prefers not to. Currently, I don't have any alternative at-will sources of income. Does this mean they won't happen next year? I don't know. However, like in 2009, I still don't need them... but I also still find it hard to imagine me not making another cent from any Renaissance interests and serendipitous opportunities either.
I also note that unlike last time, the market valuations are currently in deep-shit, but this time I have enough of a buffer and skill-level to avoid "riding the bus" (riding the rails ... getting rail-roaded ... ) if it comes to that.
As for the "ultimate goal", according to firecalc.com, we'll be worth somewhere between 10 and 24 million in present-USD 50 years from now
... that is, insofar we don't change the lifestyle we've lived since 2004 AND insofar we never make another cent. So probably the end-result NW will be more than that... Our #firstworldproblem would be who to donate the excess to.