J.L. Collins

maybe to pursue something else and take a little bit of a risk.

So I had started accumulating FU money long before I heard the term.

But I first came across the term in James Clavel's novel, Noble House.

And great novel.

And it's part of a trilogy.

And in Noble House, there is a character and her stated goal is to have

F-U money spelled out.

And I thought that put a label on exactly what I was after.

Yeah, so I came up with it pretty randomly.

So I came out of college in 1972, and there are probably very few people listening to us who are old enough to remember what that, but that was in the midst of stagflation and it was a bad economy.

And it took me a couple of years to get my first professional job.

And I spent those couple of years doing landscaping to put food on the table and pay the rent.

And my first professional job paid me $10,000 a year.

And I knew I wanted to have this FU money.

So I just arbitrarily said, you know, I know I can live on 5,000 because other people can live on 5,000.

There's no reason I can't do that.

And then I'll divert the other 5,000 to buying this thing that was most important to me.

Plus $5,000 was more than I was making as working at a landscaping crew.

And it was significantly more than I'd been living on when I was in college.

So living on 50% of my income was a big step up in lifestyle for me.