I was very luck to be born into a family that paid 80% of my undergraduate education, while I worked and paid the other 20%. I came out of undergrad with no debt and ~$1,000 in the bank in the summer of 2006. That June I was involved in car accident (as a passenger, I did not get a DL until years later) which broke some bones and caused some internal injuries. A few days of IC and I was released to my parents with an eventual $10,000 settlement from insurance. I probably could have and should have gotten more, but I was young.
I was unable to work for ~3 months and could not lift heavy objects for a further 3-4 months, which made working at my former job as a grocery clerk impossible for the time being. However, I hated working for someone else, playing by rules that did not make sense, and all the rest of the complaints so many of us have. I started my own business repairing and building computers while I was recovering from the car accident. This was the best thing I could have done for my own mental health and FI. It was the Fall of 2007.
I will continue with history another day.
Happy to be here amidst people that think similarly
I joined more for moral and emotional support than anything else. My wife thinks these are just fantasies. I cannot get her on-board despite numerous conversations (and fights). I think she is caught up in the impossible "women retiring early" dilemma noted in one of the other threads. She is an extremely intelligent woman with a PhD in a male-dominated field of science. This has left her bitter, depressed, lacking in self-confidence, but stubbornly holding on.
She does have many rewarding experiences as well, but it can never be just a "job" to her--as such things are to me--since she has had to constantly justify her place in the male-dominated hard sciences. It has been such a long and hard road for her that to just walk away and admit other things in life are more important feels like giving up or losing to her. I can understand that, but I also think she could be so much happier if she were to ascribe to a broader philosophy of work and money like ERE.
So, I hope to someday achieve FI for the both of us, whether she choose to continue working or not.
