Hello, I'm a recovering consumer sucka.
This is my first post after three months of reading all the articles and I've started to go back through the comments now that I have to wait a few weeks before new posts, so I've decided to become active in the MMM community.
I have never really been materialistic, but I spent the decade after college in search of the never-ending party (booze, bars, clubs, traveling the world, trying to impress girls, etc.). Meanwhile, I managed to run up triple the average American's credit card debt amount, and had a similar amount left in my student loans. I had absolutely nothing to show for 10 years of making a really decent salary, and the worst part about it was that I knew better. I was a finance major in college and a stock broker for a few years after, and I knew the exponential power of investing, but I did not follow the advice I gave to my clients.
Then about four years ago, I met my (now) wife and everything changed. She didn't care about shoes and purses and she only wanted to spend time with her daughters, to the point where she walked away from a manager job because it was causing her to stay late a lot and work one-fourth of the weekends. She taught me what true happiness is, and now we love spending time with our family, not spending money unnecessarily. Now, we have no school loans, even after I got two masters degrees from a private university over the last three years (thank you GI Bill), and no car loans or other consumer debt. Our mortgage is our only debt, and thanks to the crazy real estate market in Southern California, my house has appreciated 45% in the last couple of years.
I am saving about 50-60% of my net pay (housing is kinda outrageous in SoCal - but we are choosing to live in a huge house with a nice view and a good school that is walking distance), and I plan to FIRE in just under 10 years. Reading about other people pulling the trigger gives me more inspiration to lead a somewhat less-ridiculous lifestyle, and try to save more. So thank you MMM and everybody else on here.
** Ideas for MMM articles / discussions:
1) How young, single mustachians can meet other like-minded people to start their journey to financial independence together.
2) A look at unlocking home equity through the new home appreciation-sharing companies (Equity Key in San Diego and FirstREX in San Francisco *I have no affiliation with either company*) as an alternative to HELOCs, 2nd Mortgages, Reverse Mortgages, or selling your house.