I like to tell people about how I worked hard to become a software engineer without a degree. But what I don’t normally mention is I lived in a house we owned o

I like to tell people about how I worked hard to become a software engineer without a degree. But what I don’t normally mention is I lived in a house we owned outright (very low expenses), my workplace was down a developer at a small startup so my boss gave me coding tasks. At some point I got a random email from someone in my city asking me to do contract work. I’d randomly posted my resume on a job site months before (which has not happened since, in retrospect it was very strange). I also had a friend who was a dev, who coached me on how much money to ask for. This allowed me to save up enough money to quit my current job, spend a few months really learning to code, and start a new career. I could say all that stuff was just good thinking on my part but the contracting thing especially in retrospect is the dumbest of luck.