Long story short, we went from saving 0 Euros to saving 7,000 Euros a month. I started my own business 7 years ago and my wife is a self-employed midwife. We live in Germany and together we're making 10,000 Euros net. That's quite a number in Germany because health care, child care and everything is taken care of already.
For at least 3 years we blew all that money. Don't ask me how we managed to do that. I couldn't get myself to do the math because it's just too painful. But I did manage to clean up the mess at record speed. We got rid of two expensive cars and a boat, started cooking instead of eating out which we used to do at least 8 times a week (incl. work lunches). I cut my credit card in half and stopped ordering expensive toys on amazon which I did two to three times a week. You name it, I bought it. Worst of all, we're living in a rural area, so I can't even blame high rent and general high cost of living. We were just living the life of Riley and pissed away 10k every single month. There is no other way to put it.
A year later, we live comfortably on 3k a month, invest 7k and keep growing our businesses. At least we don't have any debt other than our mortgage which we pay off slowly because it's at 1,12% interest. I haven't thought about the whole FIRE thing, but it's next on my list.
Thanks MMM for helping us out of that hell hole.