Not FI, but still reaping benefits on path to FI

[lilacorchid]

Although my husband and I are not FI, and we are a few to a bunch of years away from being so, I have now seen two major events over the last four years that make me very, very happy that we have reduced expenses and debt. We were not always on the straight and narrow, but stuff like this makes me realise just how much little things truly do add up.
1. Four years ago our awesome neighbours bought their dream house across the river. Yay! Unfortunately, they bought the biggest dream house for the most they could borrow before they sold their own house. Due to whatever reason, they had to sell 10K below their minimum requirement, and then there was some sort of problem with their mortgage broker not calculating something correctly and needing another 20K... They ended up having to come up with another 30K on top of the 250K they had just stretched as far as they could to borrow to buy the dream house. Things got worse when he lost his job. He ended up getting work 1000km away, leaving his wife and toddler behind.
Watching our friends go through that was terrible. Seeing them go from so happy to so messed up really effected me. It was a big driving force behind staying in our little house after we had our son and paying off this house as soon as we could.
2. More recently, a friend of mine was approached to adopt a baby. Long story short, he is probably going to have to pass on adopting because he can't afford to lose his income to stay home with the family. (There are a lot of details I'm glossing over that aren't important as to why he is choosing to stay home.) We had a conversation a few years ago when we were talking mortgages and I distinctly remember him saying that a) 250K was not much money to own anyone and b) it's no big deal, I'll pay it off! Giant mortgage payment and two car payments later... I wonder if he thinks that now.
As a contrast, last year I was able to take five extra months off work with no salary to stay home with our son just because I wanted to and we could afford it due to lack of expenses.
I hang around all day on this forum with you bunch as my financial peers and I tend to lose perspective on what I have actually accomplished when framed by the "average" person in my age and financial peer group. I keep thinking that I'm not doing enough or not making enough progress, until something like this happens and then I realise how I am already enjoying some level of financial independence.
I'm tossing this into the inspiration section because I guess it can be taken that way, even though I'm mostly posting because I feel like the fog has cleared a little and I can see clearly for the moment and wanted to share!

[DutchGirl]

Thank you. I just spent some time on reddit where someone with a $100k income and $30k debt was asking whether he should start looking for a $300k home now, or wait. My input that maybe he should pay off his debt first, then save up for a downpayment and then go house-shopping fell on dead ears.
Some positive inspiration: my boyfriend who is an independent IT contractor will not do official work for at least the next 3 months. Instead, he will be working on developing a product that may or may not be succesfully sold. He'll be having lots of fun and if he can't sell the finished product, not much is lost.

[Felix]

You don't need to be FI to have significant financial breathing room. That's the main benefit of the whole frugality thing. It gives you both security and options.

[lilacorchid]

Sad update to #2: They will probably not be able to adopt. While trying to help them think up some ideas, I think I blew one of his fuses by suggesting that instead of trying to replace all his income, they try to reduce their expenses so they would need less income. I think I blew another when I suggested they sell some things (like a car!) to have enough money to bridge the gap where he would be off work. My heart breaks for them.