I've been here lurking for a very long time, having read (and re-read) through the blog and book 7 or 8 years ago. I decided it's finally time I start posting too. I'm still working, though I could ERE if I wanted to shift things around. I've currently got a 67% savings rate and if I retired today, I'd have a 4.5% SWR. Because there's some slack in my budget I could probably pull off retiring today by cutting spending 10-20% during downturns.
One thing that makes my situation unique is that I'm physically disabled. That aside I feel very privileged. I took a liking to programming when my age was still in the single digits and worked pretty hard in my 20's to spin that into a pretty lucrative career. That was great and has allowed me to very independent. But, it also has led me to just throw money at challenges in my life. Even though I have enough to retire, I find the renaissance person very appealing. Hopefully, through participating here I can drive my skills up more and as a nice side effect drive spending down.
Some skills or activities are harder for me due to my cerebral palsy:
- Anything involving fine motor movement. For instance, yesterday I spent 3 hours trying to sew a patch on my jeans before I gave up. However, disability is all about adaptation so I ended up using some fabric glue instead and so far as I can tell that's going to work just as well
- Things involving balancing or standing for long periods of time are hard. I think the main thing this (along with the above) has made challenging is being handy around the house. Anything involving heavy lifting or ladders is right out, which covers a surprising amount of such very useful skills.
- Transportation - Although a "disadvantage", I think this one ended up being a benefit. Largely due to my disability I never learned to drive. Now, I think I probably could with hand controls but I haven't bothered because it's saved me so much money over the years. I'm used to walking (really using a manual wheelchair for long distances) or using public transportation everywhere which I think has helped my health as well as my pocketbook.