Let’s Meetup!

I grew up stay­ing fair­ly close to home. We took a few trips to neigh­bor­ing states to vis­it a theme park or to see rel­a­tives for a week in the sum­mer. I did get to vis­it my Grand­ma in Flori­da twice, once around age 8 and once around age 13, so I was famil­iar with the con­cept of com­mer­cial air trav­el, at least. I did­n’t real­ly dis­cov­er what it was like to trav­el until I got sent on a “deploy­ment” for two weeks to Guam as a junior in college. 

Guam was incred­i­ble. It was like some­thing out of a movie. I was instant­ly hooked. 

After I became an adult with a career job mak­ing Adult Mon­ey, I tried to take an inter­na­tion­al trip once a year. I went to Aus­tralia, Eng­land, Pana­ma and Ecuador twice. I love get­ting to expe­ri­ence oth­er cul­tures and try­ing new things (guinea pig, any­one?). 

I did­n’t real­ize how much trav­el­ing meant to me before the Great Pani­ni hap­pened and I was stuck at home for 2 straight years. With both inter­na­tion­al and domes­tic trav­el restrict­ed, I’ve been rest­less and anx­ious to get back out in the world. For­tu­nate­ly, it seems Covid cas­es are falling enough to make me feel bet­ter about get­ting back out on the road. So, with the giant caveat that all these plans are con­tin­gent on where we’re at on the Covid track­er, I’m stoked to announce 3 dif­fer­ent events where you and I can hang out. Live! Face to face! Let’s grab a drink and chat!

SIPOFI St. Louis Meetup, November 6^th

No, I did­n’t have a stroke. SIPOFI is the acronym for the “Sin­gles in Pur­suit of Finan­cial Inde­pen­dence” group on Face­book. (or is it meta now? who knows what Zuck is up to these days!) You can find the group here. I love them as it’s great to get every­one’s view­points on dat­ing in the mod­ern world, and espe­cial­ly dat­ing through the lens of FIRE. It’s wit­ty, irrev­er­ent, and tons of fun. Even though I’m only sin­gle to the IRS, I stick around to share what worked for me and the excel­lent memes shared. 

Any­ways, the event is at Schlafly on Novem­ber 6^th at 4 pm. They’re host­ing a Full Moon Fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate the har­vest and the event is our favorite price of free.99. Here’s the offi­cial description: 

A six-pack of bon­fires awaits you each Fall at our Full Moon Fes­ti­val. Join us as we cel­e­brate the har­vest with live music and a pig roast fea­tur­ing hogs from local farmers.

Local chefs will also com­pete for your affec­tion (and stom­ach space) in the deli­cious­ly-com­pet­i­tive Schlafly Chili Cook-Off. But despite the full moon, the stars of the night are always the kegs of White Lager, Pump­kin Ale, Hard Apple Cider, Cof­fee Stout and oth­er sea­son­al favorites.

https://www.schlafly.com/events/fullmoon/…

I hope to see you there!

EconoMe in Cincinnati, Ohio November 12^th-15^th

One of the hard­est things about the pan­dem­ic has been not being able to see all my inter­net friends in per­son at var­i­ous events/conferences. I passed on Fin­Con this year because it’s Fin­Con and it was in Texas. It was­n’t worth it or the risk. 

How­ev­er, there is a con­fer­ence hap­pen­ing in Cincin­nati, Ohio that is absolute­ly worth going to. It’s called EconoMe and it’s being pro­duced by my friend Dia­nia Mer­ri­am to spread the good word about tak­ing charge of your finances. The web­site is here for more information. 

I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE SO MANY OF MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN ONE PLACE!!!!! I don’t think I can express how much I’ve been affect­ed by being so iso­lat­ed as a giant flam­ing extro­vert. Events like EconoMe fill up my bat­tery for the rest of the year. 

The sched­ule looks like we’ll have a great time. Fri­day night is the live Stack­ing Ben­jamins show and maybe a bon­fire host­ed by a local friend. I’ll be host­ing the Slow­FI break­out ses­sion with my blog­ger bud­dies Josh Overmy­er and We Want Guac on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. There’s a break­out ses­sion for every­one! Add in a few speak­er ses­sions and some meals with friends and an after par­ty that night and I’ll be hav­ing a blast! I sin­cere­ly invite every­one to join in on the fun. This is an excel­lent time to net­work with like-mind­ed peo­ple and find your “tribe”. (Tribe is in quotes because I’m pret­ty sure we’re not sup­posed to use that any­more but I can’t think of a bet­ter term off the top of my head. Any­one?) 

And final­ly, if you’re not already inter­est­ed, here’s the offi­cial recap of what 2020’s event looked like! 

Chautauqua, Ecuador, June 18^th-26^th, 2022

Mark your cal­en­dars! The Chau­tauqua in Ecuador is BACK! Long time read­ers will remem­ber I’ve been to the Chau­tauqua twice — once in 2015 and once in 2017. 

I am very hon­ored to be going back for a third time — but this time I’ve been asked to be a speak­er! I’ll be giv­ing a pre­sen­tion on flex­i­bil­i­ty and adapt­abil­i­ty on the path to finan­cial inde­pen­dence. My fel­low speak­ers will be Karsten aka Big ERN from Ear­lyRe­tire­ment­Now, our love­ly host Cheryl Reed, and the pair behind The Fioneers, Corey and Jessica. 

If you need a refresh­er on what a Chau­tauqua is, I’m hap­py to oblige. A Chau­tauqua is “…an old-time series of pop­u­lar talks intend­ed to edi­fy and enter­tain, improve the mind, and bring cul­ture and enlight­en­ment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer.”

Cheryl takes this def­i­n­i­tion to new heights. Each year I attend­ed has been amaz­ing for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. The first time I went in 2015 I was a fresh-faced 24 year old who eager­ly soaked up any and all advice and knowl­edge dis­pensed. Our group became very knit after just a week togeth­er. Hav­ing a small­er group allows you to form incred­i­bly deep con­nec­tions over the course of an entire week. I’m still in touch with many peo­ple from the first year, 6 years lat­er. I wrote a recap post and a lessons learned post on my week in Ecuador for a more in-depth review. 

The sec­ond time I went on the Chau­tauqua was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent — because I was dif­fer­ent. I was no longer the new kid on the block. I’d had the blog for a few years and had made friends in the com­mu­ni­ty. I did­n’t fly by myself to meet up with strangers. I trav­eled with friends to meet friends for a week. Instead of only get­ting advice, I was also dis­pens­ing advice on var­i­ous top­ics. I hope to take this to the next lev­el on the 2022 trip as a speak­er! I also wrote a recap post and lessons learned post for my 2017 trip. 

Ok. Let’s address the ele­phant in the room. 

The Chau­tauqua isn’t cheap. It’s an all-inclu­sive retreat for a week with speak­ers. Trans­porta­tion, food, lodg­ing, and activ­i­ties are cov­ered for the whole week and that adds up. 

It is 100% worth every pen­ny. The ROI for the trip will be huge. I got life advice, rela­tion­ship advice, invest­ing advice, real estate advice and even some lessons on run­ning a busi­ness. I was able to pick the brains of some of the smartest peo­ple in the FIRE com­mu­ni­ty. The con­nec­tions I made with some of the peo­ple have result­ed in stay­ing with them for a week­end or them stay­ing with me for a week­end. One of the peo­ple I met at the 2015 Chau­tauqua flew to help me move out and dri­ve a truck back home. I’m get­ting a lit­tle emo­tion­al right now think­ing of how much these expe­ri­ences mean to me. 

Please don’t go into debt to attend this event. If you’re in a good spot with your finances and are look­ing to trav­el for a week with amaz­ing like-mind­ed peo­ple, I can­not rec­om­mend the Chau­tauqua enough. It will absolute­ly change your life, like mine has been changed in the past and will be changed again in June 2022. For offi­cial sign up details, please vis­it Cheryl’s web­site at abovethecloudsecuador.com/fi-chautauqua/. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I hope to see you soon!!!

Love, 

Gwen <3