This is my first MMM forum post. My wife (29) and I (32) just got FIRED this past February. We started our FIRE planning in 2010 and set the date last summer. Around the time we set the date we discovered MMM which helped immensely. We had always been reasonably frugal but MMM helped put things further into perspective and gave us confidence to pull the trigger!
Since being FIRE'd we finished a backyard patio renovation and traveled to South America for 6 weeks. All the flights to South America were free due to Chase Sapphire and Ink credit card rewards that we got at the end of last year. Our plans for the remainder of our first year FIRE'd are more travelling and relaxing. We have plans to spend the summer on the east coast visiting family. All those flights were also free thanks to the Chase Southwest credit cards and a Southwest companion pass. Finally, in October we are going to Ecuador for 6 weeks and using Delta miles that were left over from my traveling days at work. As you can see we like credit card hacking and flying for free!
We got FIRED mostly due to real estate investing which was made possible by saving money from our day jobs as engineers. We bought foreclosed houses starting in 2009 until 2012 and fixed them up ourselves on nights and weekends. In 2013 we used some equity from the houses as well as other funds we saved up and bought a Mobile Home Park. The Mobile Home Park set us over the top for income needed to retire. Every property we bought has been kept as a rental and we self manage which takes up maybe 2 hours per week. All that was left to do was save up a healthy emergency fund and set the date.
Post-FIRE our investment strategy is different from others on this site. Our expenses including travel are covered solely by our rental income. There is actually an excess so we are still saving money. Since real estate is what we know we still invest just more passively. We do private lending to other real estate investors with our non 401k/IRA funds and also through a Self Directed IRA. Normal annualized returns range from 14% all the way up to 30%. We actually just finished a conversion of all our 401k money to a Self Directed Roth IRA. While we will have to pay a lot of taxes on the conversion, we are confident being in a Roth IRA is better for us long term.