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Yes, I did it. I went to my first FinCon. In fact, FinCon was the first major FI event that I have ever attended. I signed up for FinCon a few months before I started my blog. While I don’t exactly remember how I felt at the time, I am sure it was something like “is it really a good value for my money?” “Would I be able to connect with other attendees?” “What if they figured that I was a fraud?” The picture of a teenager being left all by himself at the lunch room started surfacing inside my head.

I was also interested in going to CampFI Mid Atlantic which was sold out. I felt that CampFI was a better fit than FinCon given I wasn’t a content producer yet. At the same time, I didn’t want to spend too much to my first FI event. Given I live in Baltimore and the event would be in DC transportation cost would be lower. I also knew the FI community was getting more robust at FinCon. Taking a leap of faith, I purchased the ticket.

Fortunately, FinCon was no high school cafeteria and I was totally able to fit right in. In fact, I haven’t had so much fun talking to strangers for so long it reminds me of the first week of me studying abroad. I hope to give you a glimpse of what you could experience if you decide to go to FinCon next year.

Constantly Starstruck

As I approached Washington Hilton, I immediately bumped into Brad Barrett, the cohost of the ChooseFI podcast, and a few other local admins who were on their way to lunch and invited me to come along. Just like that, I didn’t have to figure out lunch plan. I also had the pleasure of inquiring Brad what is coming next with the ChooseFI podcast.

Within the next few days, I bumped into, in no particular order, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, Joshua Sheats of Radical Personal Finance, Mr. and Mrs. 1500, Rob Berger of Dough Roller, Coach Carson, Craig Curelop, Cody Berman of the FI Show, James and Emily from Rethink the Rat Race, A Purple Life, Angela from Tread Lightly Retire Early, Financial Mechanic, Adam from MinaFI, Michael from Financially Alert, Gwen from Fiery Millennial, etc. etc. 

I could go on and on but you get the drill. While I can’t say I was able to have deep money conversation with every one of them, I was able to talk to them in person, instead of reading or listening the blog or podcast. You would be surprised that they just talked about their day to day life instead of money or blogging. For example, one of the bloggers talked about how her friend invited herself to be a plus one to, not one, but two weddings the blogger was attending.

A Little Bit of This, a little Bit of that

As someone who wasn’t established in any space, be it blogging, podcasting, youtubing, freelancing, or service providing, I had the flexibility to communicate with different groups. In no chronological order, I was in a real estate meetup, a sustainability meetup, ChooseFI local admins lunch, a financial coaching happy hour, and various breakout sessions.

One night I didn’t have any dinner plan, so I opened the FinCon2019 app, and found a few people in different niches to grab dinner. The app was fairly helpful in connecting people from different spaces together.

In fact, that was my game plan heading into FinCon as I wanted to hang out with a variety of people so I could explore what I wanted to do going forward.

A Helpful Community

What I was impressed the most about them were their humility and openness. I didn’t get the impression that they thought they were superior, and most of them gladly shared their contact information with me. Therefore, while I wish I spent a little more time with them, I got the sense that it wouldn’t be the last time I chatted with them in person.

I still remember at the closing party one of the more established blogger sat me down and gave me tons of advices on how to improve my blog. I just couldn’t write fast enough.

What do I wish I did more before attending FinCon?

This could be a separate blog post in and of itself. Tying back to the first paragraph of the post, I wish I attended at least one CampFI before attending FinCon. As I alluded before, I didn’t get to have deeper conversations with many people. There were just too many attendees so you either couldn’t run into them consistently or there were too many other people to talk to (Yes, I had a bad case of FOMO).

Also, someone told me that FinCon was more or less a reunion for the FI community. They either knew each other from Twitter (bloggers love it), met each other at CampFI, or collaborated via guest posts or interviews.

I also wish I wrote more before attending FinCon. I set a goal to write one article per week but haven’t followed through. If I had a more established blog, I could connect with other bloggers or freelancers better since we would have the topics to discuss.

Before FinCon, I promised myself to start reading more into the bloggers before going, which I could have done a better job at. To be completely truthful, since I stare at screens all day, I only follow a few blogs religiously, Four Pillar Freedom, ESI Money, and Mr. 1500 Days.

As a result of reasons above, I didn’t really ask any personal finance questions for fear of being too direct. I don’t want to get too many glares or questions, “who is this new kid on the block asking these types of questions?” While it was a conference for money nerds, I still followed normal social protocols. Therefore, it felt like a superficial networking event at time for me.

Would I do it again?

There are many times I regret spending money on things cheaper than FinCon (Thank you, America, for a well-developed product return system). I have absolutely 0 regret spending about $850 attending FinCon.

I was able to meet many bloggers and podcasters. I was able to meet many ChooseFI admins and to share ideas on growing our local FI community, and I re-ignited my interest in blogging and financial coaching.

At the same time, this was a reason I took over the admin duty for my local ChooseFI group. I wanted to have money conversations with real people instead of having to spend a lot of money traveling to different camps to have conversations.

I bought my ticket, but I will make a promise to myself that I will be a more serious content producer before next FinCon. I would like to see how much more involved in the content producing community I will be in a year.

Should you attend FinCon?

For the next FinCon which is in Long Beach, CA, I would highly recommend you to go if you are at least an ambivert, if you live locally or within driving distance, have consumed a fair amount of FI or personal finance content by the blogging/podcasting community, or if you have interested in a side hustle in the personal finance area, either in the form of creating contents (blogging or podcasting) or providing services (financial advisor, accountant, and financial coaches).

Or just eff all the caveats above and book your ticket already. The only strong reason I went to FinCon this year was that I lived close to Washington, DC, and I did not go home disappointed.

I hope to see you there!