Find Your People
It can be hard to discuss personal finances with others. Many feel weird and uncomfortable when we discuss earning and investing our hard earned money.
It’s true, that when you bring these topics up with your family of friends they often look at you like you are crazy! Especially when you start talking about early retirement. I had recently had dinner with my uncle, and he just couldn’t believe I was leaving my well paying job, and how I was going to get by on such a small amount of money every year. He told me I was crazy for wanting to “retire” at the age of 50.
It’s because of this I look to meet, and spend time with other like-minded people, where you can speak about investing, retiring early, and how much money you earn openly. Free from judgment and ridicule. Being able to share your goals, and dreams with others that understand the passions you have is such a great feeling. People that lift you up and not knock you down.
This is one of the reasons I have come to the EconoMe Conference for the last few years. It’s the community of amazing people with inspiring and uplifting stories. I really like to learn from others, listen to amazing speakers, and deep dive in discussion in break-out sessions.
It is also fun to let loose, and go toss footballs at bowling pins, tour a brewery, or hike the urban landscape.
This year was a little new for me as the first con where I have just recently FIRE’d myself (reached financial independence and retired early). I’m looking at how to make the absolute most of my time and life while I’m young enough and healthy enough to do so.
Evening Arrival
I arrived in Cinncinai and headed straight to the Catchup Up To FI meet up at a restaurant called the Taste of Belgium. This was just the beginning of a fun filled weekend of catching up with old friends, and making new ones. It was crazy. I had heard they were expecting about 25 people to show for the meetup. WOW! I would estimate there were closer to 100 people! This place had to call in extra cooks and staff, and close the doors to the general public. What an amazing turnout!
Then it was to the University of Cincinnati great hall for an evening of Speed Friendshipping. It was an interesting way to meet many people and hear others’ stories. It was a round table, three minute speed round where everyone shared what they wanted to gain from being at the conference, and what each of us can share or offer to others while here. We got to hear all the unique stories of where every individual was in their Financial Independence journey. We heard where they were from, where they discovered FI, and why they want to reach it! This was an interesting exercise for me. It appears 9 out of 10 people want to travel. They wan’t to reach FI to travel and explore the world. I have previous post in where I talk about this feeling and desire to travel is lost on me. This is probably a different discussion for another time.
The Conference
Each day begins with main stage speakers, and then we have some break out and deep dive sessions following lunch. There are so many great sessions to choose from. I feel bad I’ll not include every single speaker and session. However, I’ll share just a few of my take-aways and highlights from the main stage topics, as well as the break out sessions I chose over the weekend.
Live an Extraordinary Life
What I liked about Alan and Katie Donegan’s session was the inspiration to live an extraordinary life. My life is different than anyone else, and my extraordinary life is unique to me. They had mentioned something that stuck out, and I’ll be paraphrasing.
Many of us are stressed at work. We think that once we retire, and no longer have our current job, life will magically be les stressful. It was interesting how the Donegans convey the idea that this isn’t typically the case. If we are a stressful person, or otherwise live a stressful life, just because we leave our job doesn’t mean that stress instantly goes away. We can continue to experience stress after, and into retirement. Personally, I have experienced this. Having recently retired myself, much of the stress of my daily work life has been replaced by the stress and pressure of what to do and focus on while in retirement. The feeling of overwhelm and anxiety is and continues to impact me every day!
It’s important to realize and address things to help, such as meditation, exercise, and building coping skills for me to overcome the feelings of anxiety and live a less stressful life.
We can want what we already have. Another thing the Donegans mentioned was that many of us keep wanting more. We want these extravagant things to live an extraordinary life. But, it’s perfectly acceptable and okay to want what we already have. This was profound! I like my home, and where I live. I don’t have this incredible desire to travel. I often get exhausted when spending so much time with crowds and large groups of people. Ya know what? It’s totally fine and wonderful to be happy with my current home, my current location, being a homebody and relaxing with my cat watching the new X-Men ’97 Animated Series on Disney+ This is part of my extraordinary life.
Prenups
It was interesting to hear Aaron Thomas talk about Prenups and how to approach the topic when getting married. I like the way Aaron framed it. Think of this as a partnership agreement for the marriage. This really made sense to me. During this talk, it was interesting when comparing marriages from decades ago to now. Now that we wait so much longer to get married, individuals often have multiple accounts, investments, companies, vehicles, etc. A marriage is much like a merger of two organizations or companies. Having a prenup, or agreement makes sense to me. When my ex-wife and I did get married we were very young. We had nothing to begin with. Much of, or pretty much everyone was marital assets. Or, property that we accumulated together after we were married. I talk about that in the post over here.
Financial Advisor vs Financial Planner
The talk by Sarah Catherine Gutierrez was a great way to break down the language and fuzzy area where some Financial Advisors work in your best interest…until they don’t. Some financial advisors who sell insurance products for example may operate under a fiduciary standard, many operate under what’s called a suitability standard. This means they are only required to recommend products that are suitable for their clients’ financial situations, rather than necessarily the best option for you, and truly for your best interest.
This was a wonderful session to better understand this crazy, and often confusing area. While both, a financial advisor and financial planner may offer financial guidance, there are significant differences in their compensation structure, the scope of services they offer, and most importantly their fiduciary responsibility. A Fee-only fiduciary financial planners typically offer more comprehensive and unbiased advice, making them a preferred choice for individuals seeking holistic financial planning for you and your goals.
Going to College Without Debt
The last main session I’ll mention was the one by Chris Corinthian talking about how to fund college without going into debt. This was awesome! I didn’t realize there are so many opportunities to have young people get their college education paid for. Chris talked about scholarships, grants, and other programs that high schoolers can apply for and some strategies on how to help get approved. It takes some planning and hard work, but I was shocked on all the opportunities and the amount of money that is available to young people today! My kids have already launched, but this was such valuable information I had wished I had learned when my children were thinking about and planning college.
Breaking Out
Some of the break out sessions I attended were also fun. I joined the Side Hustle Session as well as the Real Estate session. In the Side Hustle session we discussed other ways to earn money leading up to, or in retirement. In the Real Estate Session we had a variety of topics to choose from, such as Residential or Commercial Investing, Creative Financing, or Longer Term vs Short or Medium Term Rentals. In these sessions we broke out into smaller groups to discuss one of the topics.
Hustle On The Side
In the Side Hustle Session, I had a realization. I enjoy discussing or coaching others on how to creatively approach their side hustle or business. For example, one of the members of our group was an artist, and is a retiring art teacher. He wanted ideas on how to get started selling his art has a side hustle. Other than renting a space, and hosting their own exhibition. It was fun to entertain ideas and thoughts on how to get started and doing so without a large expense of hosting your own exhibit. There were many ideas, such as approaching coffee shops, breweries, medical clinics or hospitals to exhibit art while establishing yourself. Partnering with an other well-established artist and asking to have a couple pieces on display at someone else’s exhibit. There are many other art fairs and craft shows that can serve as a launch pad as well.
We talked about how important social media is when it comes to art. Leveraging platforms like Instagram, for example to post your artwork, but also the creative process of drawing or painting on the platform begins to build a following, and can start to market directly to them. Being consistent and frequent on social media can really help artists be successful.
This individual had original, framed drawings he was interested in selling. I mentioned, you may also do prints of smaller, lets expensive options like postcards or folded note cards. This helps get your art out to the public, and can be the beginning of making sales.
This break out session was super fun for me, and having an opportunity to discuss ideas with others, and hopefully inspire others to follow their side hustle dream of selling their art!
Real Estate Investing
In the Real Estate Break out session, I joined the Residential Real Estate Investing smaller group of about 7 or 8 people. It was a mix of people that already had rental investment property, some that were wanting to get started, as well as local vs remote investing landlords. Some investors managed their own, while others like myself now have a property manager to handle their properties.
It is interesting to hear others’ stories of how they started, why they want to get started, and others that have been investing for nearly ten years. I’m not an expert, but could share my experience so far. Now that I’ve had rental properties for several years, and it has helped me retire early at the age of 50.
This session also presented me with an exciting realization. Perhaps I could help others get started, or build a small residential investment portfolio. Combining what I learned in the side hustle session about helping educate others, and sell a digital product like training or a course on Residential Real Estate Investing.
It’s the People
As I mentioned above, the biggest benefit of the EconoMe Conference is all the other conversations you have, like live podcast recordings. The discussions between sessions, at lunch and dinner. Hanging at the hotel or grabbing a snack. To me, this was the best part of hanging with so many great people. Thank you to Diania for hosting, planning, and organizing the event. I’m glad I found all these people.
Time To Explore
I had a few hours before my flight home, so I pulled up Maps, and looked for things to do in the Cincinnati area. There was a Zoo and Botanical garden, but it had turned out to be a pretty cold and windy kind of day. I decided to choose an indoor activity. I hung out at the Cinncinatti Museum Center. It was cool to check out the Museum of Natural History and Science, The Cincinnati History Museum as well as POMPEII: The Exhibition. Now even at 50 years old, I’m still just blown away by things like, the size of dinosaurs. Are you kidding me?! These things are GIGANTIC! And the resilience and hardworking people of generations before us. It is amazing what the people have built in the early 1900s. I think it can be important to reflect on this, especially when we face challenges in our own lives.
Thanks again! Horns Up, Friends \m/ \m/
Leave a Reply