Ok, not remotely epic, but gotta keep this thread live, because it entertained me my entire Christmas break. My story happened in the tech crash, before I felt like I really had FU money. But we had dual incomes and low expenses relative to our salaries.
DH took an insecure job to move near me when we married; it was sad but not a huge shock when that company went under. His company offered to transfer him out west, and I found a job with a company there (I'm a lawyer - 30%+ paycut sucked, but jobs were scarce and I was glad to find one). Alas, the job was pure hell. The big boss was a fan of the "swoop and poop" management style -- she'd swoop in, yell at you that any idiot would know to do ABC, disappear for a month, then swoop back in for a status check and yell at you for doing ABC, because any idiot would know to do XYZ. Management knew they were losing good people, but the CEO refused to fire her because he trusted her.
It all came to a head when I had a miscarriage and subsequent D&C and missed a week. During that week, one of my matters that had been dormant for months suddenly came back to life. My first day back in the office, she called a meeting of everyone in the department and parceled out all of my work, without ever looking at or saying a word to me (who knew ghosting was a management style in 1999??). I went back to my office, bawled, pulled myself together, and went back to ask her why she removed me from the project. She fed me a line about being concerned about my health and not wanting to burden me at a tough time. Right. 6 months later when I asked for a raise/promotion (the supervisor I had been hired to assist quit two weeks after I arrived, and I had done her job for well over a year), I was turned down, because I had "really fallen down on that project."
Meanwhile, we had built our house, planning to stay there forever. So I went home, again in tears, and pulled out Quicken and worked the budget until I realized that I could quit and we wouldn't lose the house. And the weight lifted: all the crap didn't matter any more, because I didn't NEED that job. So I started making plans to give my notice.
Then they announced that the company was being bought, and the severance package was awesome (on the order of 9-10 mos. salary even for me). So I said, well, hell, I can manage a few more months of this for that kind of cash. So I hung on for 9 more months. And damned if the big boss didn't then come meet with me and say "congratulations -- I managed to save your job!" WTF? You treat me like shit for 2.5 years, and NOW you start looking out for me? I quit the next day and went back to telecommuting to my old firm. Worked well less than half time (had a baby that year), still made 3/4 of what I did at the hell job.
And demonstrating the power of karma: said evil boss was herself the one who got fired as part of the transition, and the woman who came in and took her place tried very hard to convince me to stay. I turned her down, politely -- and a few years later we moved back east, and I am now a partner at the same firm I went back to, making probably 4-5x what I made at the hell job. And the lady I politely turned down is a periodic firm client.
But my DH has my favorite line. Now, I should say that he is happy in his current job and has zero intention of quitting (maybe ever). But one day, about 2-3 years after he started, his boss was giving him a hard time about not having any decorations or personal stuff in his office. And his buddy spoke up and said "his wife's a partner in a law firm, he can be gone in an hour if he gets too pissed off." And DH just smiled and said, "I may need A job, but I don't need THIS job." Needless to say, he has felt free to take time off as needed for kid duty (as have I). Makes two full-time jobs and two kids much more livable on a daily basis.
FU money is awesome. And cash in the bank isn't the only way to get it -- while you're still building the 'stache, a happily-employed spouse + living on one income goes a long, long way.