I’m 39 going on 40 and a father of one. 

I have a BA and MBA and worked in big 3 consulting before turning to the corporate life.

Today I’m middle management.

My financial independence journey started about 5 years ago, but it took the pandemic to turn things to 11.  I got a new boss who was quite horrible, and the fully remote work setup ensured that I felt completely alone and helpless as I marinated in my misery.

Between the anxiety and the depression, I began to realize that I desperately wanted freedom.  Catering to the whims of others while crumbling under the weight of financial uncertainty simply became too much.  

It amazes me now looking back, at how we, as a family, lived before that point.  My wife and I brought in an upper-middle-class household income, and we were not disciplined at all—we bought a big house, ordered from Amazon on a daily basis, ate out plenty, and generally treated the family credit card like a gift card.

While we keep our accounts separate, we each contribute an equal amount to the family budget every month.  Not only did we spend all of this, we often had to write add-on checks to cover deficits.

Fortunately, we were brought up by Asian parents who taught us to save; so while we could have done much better, we did manage to tuck away some cash.  It was with this cash that I bought my first rental property in 2019, and things grew from there.