I was originally going to just comment because I keep missing the updates, but realized something kind of cool.
I've never (until recently) had FU money, but I've always had a kind of life rule where "If I don't like what I'm doing, I do something else or go somewhere else).
One job I had when I was 17 (fast food). The money didn't bug me, but it was really soul crushing. Decided I was done. Turned in my two weeks at the beginning of the shift. The manager was extremely surprised because apparently nobody every did that while making minimum wage. Got put on shitty duty, and I realized that this is how the next two weeks were going to be. Walked up to her and told her I made a mistake. She got all smug and said I could stay. I looked at her, and said "Oh no. I just meant that even though that letter said two week notice, it was more like a two minute warning..." I know I stole that from somewhere, but it was still fun.
Had another job the next day.
Another time I worked as the lead baker. Fun work, biked in, and was on my own until about 6am when everyone else showed up. After some changes in management, they screwed up my check (by shorting me about 50%). I asked the new management what I needed to do to get it fixed, and they said deal with it. As I walked out, I accidentally had my knife open, and cut a 50lb bag of flour open...in front of a giant fan...that was on.
Those were fun, but not a huge deal. However, my most recent position was a bit more serious. I worked at a really cool cable company. Worked my way into a junior application dev role, and slowly worked my way up until I was a full developer with 6 years of professional experience. Lot's of reorganization happened, and the company turned into something like a shinier version of comcast...not pleasant. My boss left, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of my department. New boss came in, and while he was a good politician, not that great at anything else...like managing, or technology, or being smart. I knew I should leave, but was scared to death. I was making like $45K/year!!! I'd be stupid to give that up!! At this time, I also had just found MMM and read every article, plus I had my old boss cheering me on, saying that I was worth a lot more than what I was getting. Thought about looking, so I brushed off the resume, and got the sense of what my skill set was actually worth. The boss called me in, and said (since I was the only one left) that I was invaluable, and they would like to offer me a substantial raise...to $50K.
I realized that invaluable wasn't the right word, and that I wasn't valued at all. I immediately turned in my two weeks notice. 3 days later I got an offer doing work that was really fun, for a substantially larger amount.
So not necessarily an FU money story, but more of an anecdote about how much fear can cost you. You don't even need FU money per se to do the math and know that you'll be okay. FIRE date is within 6 years now, since I almost completely avoided the lifestyle inflation aspect of getting more money.
I'll never forget the day I shot myself in the face with MMM's
optimism gun, and got free from that fear.