FinCon16 recap
September 28, 2016
Money Blogger’s First FinCon!
Y’all. I haven’t shown my face publicly as a money blogger in ten years. Plus, I’m an introvert. FinCon16 seems like a Pretty Bad Idea for a pseudonymous blogger. But it also sounded like an awful lot of fun and so, with some persuading, the 6th annual year of the PTMoney FinCon was my year.
I met so many people and didn’t want to depart with haste, not even once. Oh wait, I did, once but that was just from one session.
The thing about FOMO
When I finally got off the hotel shuttle and walked into the hotel, I barely suppressed the urge to raise my arms and bellow “TO ME, MY MONEY NERDS”. Only the knowledge that going all Professor X on the half empty lobby might end the fun Very Quickly stopped me.
Friends on Twitter were feeling the FOMO well before we left, and it’s certain that if I weren’t a veteran of SDCC and ECCC (comic cons, my other love), that feeling could have ruined the trip from the get-go. Heck, I was Right There, and by arriving late in the day, I was already missing out on all the Wednesday activities – the Experian dim sum lunch, the chance to meet and chat with people before the conference madness started.
The reality is missing out isn’t a risk, it’s a certainty. Even while on site, I was missing out because there was just simply no way I’d make it to every session, meet every person I wanted to meet, and achieve All The Things. For example, I almost got to say hi to Tonya of Budget and the Beach but she was moving too quickly, I never found Kathleen Celmins of Frugal Portland, Mr. 1500 Days was only identifiable on the first day in a sheep tee, and those are just the few that my sleep-deprived brain can recall right now.
The only sure thing about my health is I can never accurately predict if I’d be physically up to it. As my dear friend Abby knows only too well, chronic fatigue is an unpredictable, abusive drunk that can attack you at any time, without rhyme or reason.
Thankfully, a long history with SDCC has taught me that it’s not worth agonizing over that which you can’t do – enjoy the moment you’re in.
Hugging the stuffing out of old friends
I wasn’t prepared with a list of people that I wanted to meet but I tweeted reminders to myself each day to keep myself from going full-introvert and social-avoidance. It’s been too long since I saw Lazy Man and Money or J.Money. I just met Athena in person this trip, but I’ve been her sounding board for so long that I’d forgotten we’d never met. Thanks to Abby of I Pick Up Pennies, Donna Freedman of Surviving and Thriving, and Crystal of Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, I had introductions to a plethora of people and made some wonderful new friends.
If you’re an introvert, I highly recommend getting adopted into an extrovert’s clan. Riding that extrovert’s wake makes a huge difference in whether you hide in a corner and pretend that plant is fascinating, or have an awesome Saturday ooohing over JD Roth’s puppy videos, and Pauline’s Great Dane.
Also, they’re way better at making introductions to others when my response to “Hi, I’m [Blogger you read].” was a halting “Hi! I’m .. uh … oh. What name do I use?”
Luckily, Joe Taxpayer, Maria Nedeva, Sarah Li Cain, Ms. ONL, Cait Flanders, Femme Frugality, Jessica Moorhouse, and Emma Lincoln were kind souls who didn’t hold it against me.
Highlights …
The best thing I did was have friends who understood my limitations existed and helped me stay engaged without pressure.
The best thing I did before coming was spending years forming deep friendships with people. Who knew that would make this meeting thing so much better?
My favorite quest was Abby’s and my quest to find a water bottle. She had lost hers, and I’d forgotten to bring mine, so we swept the Expo Hall in search of the perfect replacement bottle. In the process, we collected some other fun, decent quality, swag: a beach mat, Vanguard’s fantastic zippered tote, an insulated thermos small enough for PiC’s coffee when we road trip, an insulated tote that’ll be great when we picnic, a Swagbucks gift card, and a handful of unbelievably soft t-shirts. I’d sworn off collecting any more t-shirts but these were like cloud puffs. They had to come with me. JuggerBaby’s favorites were all from Donna’s picks: a squishy blue pig, a blow-up beach ball, the emoji plushes. PiC also loved the running socks I snagged for him. All useful things!
The best surprise was winning $500 in the PennyHoarder social media giveaway! I’d been concerned about the cost of the trip since AGSL hasn’t been generating income this year and this was an awesome offset.
The best unexpected edit to my agenda was that PiC braved TWO solo flights with JuggerBaby so that they could join me and have a birthweek dinner together.
My favorite session was a tie between the FIRE talk and Grant Baldwin’s talk on booking speaking gigs (which, if you know me, is the opposite of what I’d be interested in). The former was just interesting chatter about how the panelists choose to live their FIRE lives, the latter was clear, great actionable information, and persuasive.
I’ve been going to San Diego for over ten years, but I loved seeing it through the eyes of other non-Californian bloggers. Everyone had a sunset photo!
…and lowlights
The grossest moment was that jerk security guard working for the hotel accosting me to say that if I ate that cupcake I was holding it would ruin my figure.
The second worst moment was understanding that I wasn’t the only one who had to hear unsolicited comments about our appearance. Other attendees commiserated with their reports of harassment after I vented my frustration on Twitter.
This shouldn’t be something we have to deal with.
In the words of Monty Python, “it got better.” I made an official report, PT Money and Jessica Bufkin (the event organizer) dealt with it, and though the hotel’s handling of the situation is purely crap, I am satisfied that FinCon doesn’t sweep the harassment of their attendees under the rug. Next step: heading it off before it happens.
Last, the final keynote speaker was bad. For a minute I wasn’t going to discuss that but if not here, then where?
The speaker sent an interminable period bragging about how he’s rich and oh by the way, SO rich. He was so over I was convinced it was some absurdist parody, but it wasn’t.
I walked into a business conference, and walked out of a frat house presided over by an entitled pontificating Frat Bro bragging on how he’s rich and had sex in the company bathroom. Such business. Very class. Wow.
The key points he made that would have been useful were:
- making it as an entrepreneur takes time, work, and many failed attempts to pay off,
- winning the lotto isn’t the way to get rich,
- there was probably a third but it was lost in the grandstanding.
The point he really made was: When you have enough money, you can do and say anything you want. Remind you of any particular unqualified political candidate?
He clearly had some fans, particularly when he started flashing cash and stuffing it down the shift of his attendee helper, perhaps signalling the shift from a frat house to a strip club, but there were plenty of quietly disgusted attendees later on as well.
The money part
Airfare, $600
I planned for my flight, but then PiC and JuggerBaby flew down too! For a limited time, JuggerBaby is free as a lap infant. Boy howdy is it going to be painful to start paying for a 3rd seat always.
Dog boarding, $150
It was just too much for PiC to manage all of Seamus’s medications and supplements while chasing a child so he was better off taking a short vacation with our sitter. He got to run with the pack, and cuddle with a puppy, so you know he wasn’t missing us at all. And the sitter is great – she does all his medications, takes them for hikes, and washed his bedding for us!
Hotel, $760
I originally agonized over the decision to have a single room to myself but it was the right call, not least because of my surprise visitors, but also because I needed a bit of quiet decompression time each night. Which isn’t to say that my FinCon buddies wouldn’t have been good roommates, but sometimes you just need to be alone.
Also! I signed up for the SPG Double-Triple your points promotion just before we went, and opted for the Green Choice program, so my 4-night stay netted around 5000 SPG points.
Transportation, $75
The shuttle to and from the hotel was free for all of us. Free and they were pretty good – I didn’t fear for my safety going to and from.
We walked to the restaurant for dinner the one night we all went out together and to the deli for lunch but that was about it for accessible dining. We had to catch cabs or Uber to and from the Gaslamp.
We had to park at the airport at the other end (darn car seats!) and after a coupon, the cost was around $40. Coupons for airport parking, who knew? And before you ask, yes, I absolutely checked for cash back rebates on top of that but there wasn’t a stackable deal. Had to try!
Food, $100
I picked up some provisions, transport kindly provided by Abby, at the local grocery store but I should have grabbed more. Breakfast provided by the conference each morning was hit or miss. Each day, the provisions were fewer and ran out faster. As Ms ONL noted it was noticeably beige food: carbs, carbs, more carbs. I was hankering for some protein and roughable but it wasn’t happening at breakfast.
FinCon provided tickets for food truck lunch on our first day. Abby wisely insisted that we hit the lunch trucks first before the place filled up. To absolutely no one’s surprise, I had the BAT (bacon, arugula, tomato) grilled cheese sandwich. Bacon and tomato? I’m there. Tomatoes and greens? Taste bud heaven. I was so full that I had to pass on the Vanguard cupcakes that day. (Not the next day, though!)
As a birthday treat from Crystal, we had In’n’Out burgers for lunch the next day. Then it was all about the Mexican food: awesome chips and salsa to go with our carnitas for my birthday dinner, and enormous burritos on Friday night across the street from the Ignite event. I missed some hosted Happy Hours, unfortunately, let’s pretend the nibbles there weren’t amazing.
We need a suite with a kitchen so we can throw together some healthy meals. Too bad we couldn’t book out an enormous Residence Inn and host family style meals. Cooking for small scale groups is bonding, right?
TOTAL, $1685
FinCon17: Dallas?
As much fun as I had this year, this is too expensive a conference to attend two years in a row without business goals in mind and business income to cover it.
San Diego is on the same coast and our bill was a whopper.
I did pick up a badge during the Flash Sale but that’s no guarantee of my attendance.
At a minimum, the flight and hotel have to be booked on miles and points if AGSL isn’t earning enough to send me out. Say it isn’t, then I have about 7-9 months to amass enough points and miles to book in time, assuming our other travel commitments don’t eat into the stash.
I have to be able to take 5-6 days off work to travel as well. I’m still swamped under a mountain of work and the outlook isn’t good for the next six weeks. That’s got to change, or I might collapse under thousands of emails!
Making Connections
A great point that Ms. ONL made was that a huge part of this blogging conference was meeting people. Whether just socially, or for specific mentoring, we grow, strengthen and deepen our relationships when we spend time with each other. Even for an introvert, this was a wholly enjoyable event because of the socializing, not in spite of it, and that’s saying something!
Not everyone can spend this kind of money or effort to attend, though – it’s a lot of money and a lot of time. Heck, obviously I’m not sure if we’ll be able to repeat the experience, Dallas-style, but I’m taking steps to making it happen.
That is such a bummer about the key note speaker. Ugh. Although I just listened to a bunch of webinars that Grant hosted as part of a speaker summit, and those were amazing. Quite a few speakers noted that most speakers are actually introverts. As an introvert and public speaker, I can relate! It’s much easier to talk at an audience than mingle in a party. Hopefully we can connect over Skype! We shall see if I make it to next years or not. I just need to convince everyone to visit Montana so we can hang out and eat ice cream. =)
I called it out because no one else mentioned it and I felt strongly about it but it doesn’t negate all the rest of the awesome.
I missed the point about introverts and public speakers. I’ve always hated public speaking so much but I am slowly softening toward it, perhaps because of people who make it sound more normal.
Ice cream in Montana? What major airlines fly into your airport?
http://www.iflyglacier.com/airline-carriers.php
Huckleberry ice cream alone is worth the trip! We can stay here http://lodgeatwhitefishlake.com/ it’s my absoult fav for a staycation! And on the shoulder season super reasonable. Just saying…
I’m glad to hear about your experience. From the Twitter feed, I could tell that final keynote was not up my alley as well! Yeesh. I was almost turned off from going at all next year… but then I heard Ms. ONL give her thoughts and I bought up my ticket! I hope you come! (but I totally get it… I’m trying to figure out how to pay for next year’s conference as well since my blog makes basically nothing! 🙂 ) Thanks for your thoughts!
I should have been more clear that the reason the keynote was so crappy was because it didn’t match the tone of the entire conference up til then. I hung out with or spoke to all cool people, many more than I managed to name, and not one of them was anything but gracious and friendly.
Another Alaska-based (Anchorage) PF blogger here. I do hope you attend next year because it would be fun to say hello. Kind of hard to do those FinCon meetups that people in Lower 48 metropolitan areas can arrange fairly easily. There’s just not that many of us on the Last Frontier.
A very fair point and one that will weigh as heavily in our decision making as the cost.
There might be scholarships or other opps, such as this year’s Center for Financial Services Innovation writing competition. (My daughter, who blogs at I Pick Up Pennies, was one of the 10 winners. Yay!)
If you split a room with another attendee that also keeps the costs lower. Buying groceries for the room vs. going out to eat also helps.
Hope you’ll give it a try, and hope to see you there.
OMG I can’t believe that guy said that about the cupcake. I heard several different accounts that kind of thing. A lot of people were saying it was also too dude-ish. I hardly noticed (maybe I was moving too fast) but your account of the last keynote speaker pretty much sums up fincon for me (bragging galore). I had mini moments that were enjoyable, but I can say with almost 95% certainty that it was my last fincon. Still sorry we didn’t meet. 🙁 You should have just yelled my name. I get tunnel vision.
Yeah, most of them I heard after I shared my account. What a shame that FinCon was reflexive of that speaker for you – you should have hung out with us. We had none of that nonsense, it was all good fun and joking and random stuff. That’s actually why it was so jarring when we ended on that keynote, it was the total opposite of my entire experience to that point. I should have yelled! My trouble is my mouth is slower than my brain and you were gone before the mouth motor caught up 🙂 but I’m sure we can meet up another time. You’re very close to where another dear friend lives.
I know you’re up to your eyeballs already, but consider sending a note to the CEO of the Sheraton chain — first saying what happened and then including the hotel’s anemic response.
Plenty of other places exist to hold conferences, so it’s in their best interest to work with employees ( a “how not to be an a-hole” seminar, maybe?) and also with local customer service.
I normally do that, I’ll put it on the list and see if I can – I was hit with an extra heavy quadruple load of work when I got back so I’m just staggering under that right now.
Hey, Tonya: So sorry that you might not attend again. I’ve been to all six and while I agree that this one was somehow dudebro-ish, I think it can be fixed. For starters, we could all respond honestly to the post-conference surveys about what we liked and what we didn’t like.
Next year hang out with Revanche and others (including me, I hope).
Another alternative to staying at the hotel would be renting an AirBnB! I gathered up some blogger friends and we stayed in a houseboat in the marina by the Bay tower. It had a full kitchen and a sweet rooftop deck and only ended up costing $250/person. Email some people and see if you can find a suitable unit for Dallas!
That was you guys! I heard rumors of a houseboat! 🙂 I loved the ease of being in the hotel right by most of the events but having a nearby house would be awesome too.
I’ve been to all 6 Fincons and the main company you keep decides the whole event for me. You, Sherrian and Khaleef from Fat Guy Skinny Wallet, Maria from the Money Principle, and Joe Taxpayer were my core group this year and it was awesome. Yeah, the last keynote guy was a douche, and the conference growing super fast brought in a few more douches, and that security guard deserved a cupcake to the face, but there are so many other, better people that make it great. 🙂 I really enjoyed getting to connect one-on-one with Valerie Rind, Sandy from Yes I Am Cheap, Debbie Cox, and meet new people like Leslie at Notorious D.E.B.T.
I totally understand Dallas being a maybe, but it would be more fun with you. Even if it’s a no go, I’ll see you at least once or twice next year – we can make it to each other’s homes at least, LOL. Anyway, thanks for being a fun conference buddy and an amazing person. 😀 And your kid is so cute my ovaries hurt. 😉
You’re so right. Conference buddies unite! And I hope it’s obvious from the many names in the highlights reel that they far outnumber the bad. I can’t believe I left off as many names as I did – Debbie and Jordan were awesome! Also so were Valerie, Sandy, and Leslie.
You’re excellent with the kid, and super prepared with the bribery, you’ll do well 😉
Um, EW. WTF.
Was following some tweets and enjoying the stream! Light FOMO but nothing unmanageable 🙂 I haaaate conferences with a passion, but with a good pack to roam with I can imagine it’d be a lot of fun.
I have no idea why I enjoy conferences most of the time. Though I was super bored for one that I went to and ended up going shopping instead. I still have that shirt!
Oh man, I’d love to go to a FinCon conference, but I’d feel so out of place not writing about money anymore.
I have the urge to look up that last speaker to make sure I’m not following him. That behavior is disgusting, and I don’t want to assist them by giving them my traffic ?
How on earth do people stay employed making comments like that to hotel guests!?
Honestly I don’t know how much it matters if you don’t write money. People ask what you do but I got the sense that if I said I was a trick zebra rider they’d have been interested as much as they were about my blog. Which is to say, if they already knew me from my blog, then they’d not even ask. If they didn’t, it was about as relevant to our conversation as saying I dyed my hair green.
I really don’t know but IGH.
It was so great to meet you! I agree about FinCon (even though it was my first time) being kind of dude heavy, but I’m going to elaborate on that and say those were the exceptions. So many newbies had misconceptions about what it is and were totally there to promote it. Some people who’ve been there before said the same thing.
I personally had a great time and avoided snobs at all costs. I totally got out of my comfort zone (heck, I went on stage!) and met some amazing people who were willing to help me with my big vision.
I agree about keynote speaker. I have a feeling PT will need to figure out how to get that small group feeling as I’m sure FinCon will grow again next year.
I suppose the dude heaviness wasn’t something that stood out that much, other than noticing that many of the big names were men, but also because I hung out with Donna Freedman and several other women who I consider a big deal 🙂
Other than the unfortunate encounters from which I extricated myself, the company was generally awesome and that was without even having a specific goal.
It’ll be interesting to see how it maintains flow as it grows.
Those lows sound pretty awful. What a horrible keynote speaker.
I go to a lot of dude heavy conferences about money for work. This is one I can skip. Especially since
we’re anonymous and not monetized and even if we weren’t we’re not exactly a big name in financial blogging.
Oh yeah they were each gross. But they were also about 2-20 minutes each, whereas each of the highs were hours of fun and happy. In this case, without negating the gross, the good well outweighed the bad. Like Crystal and SP noted, the company you keep is your choice and the company I actually chose was rollicking good so happily I was able to extricate from the bad and return to the good. But I’ll never recommend that Sheraton SD Hotel and Marina, ever.
The Econ conference is always at the conference center area so I stay at the westin or the Marriott when it is in San Diego. Last time I went we hung out with wandering scientist at a playground.
I love the Westin, it’s so family friendly! And I wish I could have visited Cloud, that would have been extra awesome.
Well, I’d have to start up my blog in a more serious manner again (and monetize? and be on twitter?), but it totally sounds fun! (Translation: It does sound fun, but I’ll almost certainly never attend)
I hang out in the women’s PF blogosphere (and mostly those that are years and years old – although there are some great newer blogs out there, I just don’t read them). The male dominated aspect surprises me, because you can really choose your community online and filter out any braggadocios (ha) and jerks.
I’m so glad you had this fun experience!
I am so glad we had the chance to meet! I hope we get some more bonding time next year, but understand the expense thing. If you’re not getting an ROI, it’s hard to justify that kind of cost, as awesome as it is.
Promise you’ll let me know if you’re ever in Western PA?
Me too! And absolutely!
It was awesome to meet you IRL. I remember how welcoming you were to the PF community when I started blogging 7 years ago. My regret is not getting to see the little one!
Thank you for calling out that security guard and mentioning the final speaker. He did seem to change the atmosphere and I didn’t appreciate the tone/attitude. I thought it was because of my age but glad to see it was more universal.
I wanted to mention for people that weren’t there that the attendance was about equally male/female. Just some guys think they own the world.
Aw, I’m so glad you spotted me and said hi. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the people and I didn’t recognize some folks right in front of my face 😀 I think it’s interesting that we all perceived different attendance mixes, I wonder how much that was affected by the topics we were following. I’ve missed you from the PF world!
It was great to see you again!
Likewise! I hope we’ll see you again sooner than later.
[…] be surrounded by an amazing introvert core that made me feel loved and encouraged – Revanche from A Gai Shan Life, Maria Nedeva from The Money Principle, Khaleef and Sherrian Crumbley from KNS Financial, and Joe […]
I am so disappointed we didn’t get to meet! That’s my one regret from #FinCon16. Hope you go to #FinCon17! I’m going to against the grain here, and I would say I’m not a fan of Noah, but some of the things he said had the most impact on my post-FinCon plans. Joe and I took his “10X your goal” idea to heart and we’re changing some of the things we were planning for next year. I don’t think he was up there to make friends. I think he was up there to make us think differently. I definitely knew he was a jerk before he spoke, so my opinion of him didn’t change.
Likewise! It cracks me up that you were able to take away anything because you already knew he was an asshole. I think the fact that his 10x point didn’t stand out to me wasn’t just because of all the bullshit it was drenched in, but because that’s also not a new message to me. I may not have time to prioritize that yet because I’m juggling a lot but it’s an idea that’s always floated out there. But I’m glad that at least it was the right message at the right time for you! I can happily say that that by itself didn’t taint my experience, I just didn’t like going out on that note. Still, the energy from the rest of the conference was awesome.
You are soooooooo awesome! I just had to get that out of the way.
I am so glad that you came this year because it was really great meeting you and getting to hang out with you a little. I even got to meet your family (your [edited: child] stole my heart, by the way)!
It’s too bad that you are anonymous, because I think your personality would be so great in video. I hope to interact with you throughout the year!!
D’awwww you! I loved meeting your little family as well, it was such an unexpected treat. Crystal’s mentioned you before and I’m thrilled to have met with more of her people – y’all are great. We’ll keep in touch!
I love your writing!
How can people be surprised at bloggers commenting on the male energy at the con when a KEYNOTE SPEAKER has a slide like that?
Glad to hear the rest of the con was worth it, though. 😀
Why thank you! I know, it’s such typical dude-bro behavior that it was disappointing to see on stage as the final keynote. But I think there are always ways to improve as long as we’re willing to do so!
Sooooo nice seeing you again!! I had no idea it was your first time “out” there? I should have made more of an effort to hang out and talk to you, I’m sorry 🙁 I always loved seeing your smiley face throughout though! Next time we’re hanging for much longer 🙂
You were swarmed, I understand 🙂 I’m just happy we got a chance to say hi and grab a hug. Next time!
See, the cupcake guy secretly coveted your cupcake and was hoping he could goad you into smushing it in his face (which is what would’ve happened it he’d tried that with The Fatlady…) so that he could eat it.
I would LOVE to attend a FinCon but couldn’t even begin to afford that kind of money. Actually entertained the possibility, urged by friends here, but luckily resisted the temptation, since I had to replace the car last week.
“How do you make and maintain connections to your people? Who are your people?” Business groups, by and large. I belong to a small group that meets once a week and off and on belong (and then don’t belong) to the Chamber of Commerce. And here in the Phoenix area there’s now a group of Arizona PF bloggers who are great.
I’m rather glad that most of my friends suggested that smashing the cupcake in his face was the appropriate response 🙂
It was sooo nice hanging out with you. I was dreading my first FinCon as well but having people like you around made it awesome. I did have a need to retreat a few times a day but globally was amazed by the warm and welcoming crowd.
Glad you got a Dallas ticket hope you end up using it!
I hope so too! I’m way overdue in sending you a package as well, apologies for that!