Five Personal Takeaways From FinCon19

Five Personal Takeaways From FinCon19

FinCon19 is officially in the books!

To be honest, I didn’t even think it would top my fantastic experience at FinCon18 in Orlando.

But guess what. FinCon19 was even better. It was such an amazing experience!

Below are five personal takeaways that contributed to FinCon19’s awesomeness.

 

1) FinCon19 Was So Much Fun

I had such a fun experience last year at FinCon18 that I wanted to do it all over again. That’s why I bought my pre-sale tickets to FinCon19 as soon as they were available. I expected FinCon19 to be fun, but not THIS MUCH fun.

Everything about FinCo19 was fun. The people, the food, the speakers, the parties. Everything.

How many people can actually say that they partied in a Smithsonian Museum? I’m guessing not many. The opening kick off party was at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. It’s a huge five story building with a rooftop terrace overlooking the Capitol.

The party was hosted by Robinhood and the entertainment included a live band, DJ, open bar, and a donut wall. Yep, you heard me right, a donut wall. Of course being a health-conscious vegan and all, I didn’t give in to the wall. I did have a few drinks though!

And that wasn’t the only “free” party with an open bar.

All of the industry sponsored dinners and parties were reminiscent of my residency days when drug and device reps would spend lavishly to wine and dine us poor residents by taking us to fancy dinners.

It’s hard to see it now, but I used to be somewhat of a party animal. Those were some fun times!

Didn’t Bring The Baby This Time

Last year, I took my wife and baby girl with me to FinCon. I have to admit, it was pretty stressful. Our baby’s sleep was totally thrown off. And she’s not a great sleeper to begin with!

This year I shared a room with Physician Zen, whom I’ve become pretty good friends with. Not surprisingly, it was a totally different experience. Definitely less stressful. And of course, a lot of fun.

It sorta reminded me of the good old days in college: having a roommate, going to class, meeting new faces, partying, and having a good time.

 

2) If You Want Something, Ask For It

This was repeated a few times by several speakers. If you want to learn how to write a book, ask an author about the book writing process. Want a raise? Ask for one. Opportunities won’t be given to you unless you seek them out and ask.

It was also a recurring theme among some of the physician personal finance bloggers. For example, Practice Balance was granted a long sabbatical simply because she asked for it. Nomads With a Vision somehow negotiated full time pay and benefits while only working part time. That’s amazing!

Even I got in on the action. I was upgraded to the top floor on the executive level with a slightly larger room overlooking the city just because I asked.

Having the American Express Hilton Honors Aspire card gives me Hilton Diamond Status. And with this status, I am eligible for upgrades when available. I actually asked to be upgraded to a suite, but they didn’t have one with two beds. Since I was rooming with Physician Zen, being in a suite with only one king size bed was unacceptable. So I had to settle for a large room overlooking the city.

If you are thinking bout signing up for the American Express Hilton Aspire card, consider using my referral link here. Not only would you be Hilton Diamond Status just by having the card, you would also earn 150,000 Hilton Honors points after spending $4,000 in the first three months. Yes, the annual fee is quite high at $450, but the card also comes with valuable perks such as a free weekend night certificate (which can potentially be redeemed for greater than $450 value), a $250 Hilton resort fee credit, and a $250 airline fee credit. As you can see, the credits and the free night certificate can offset the high annual fee.

 

3) You May Have More Impact Than You Think

There were several times when people stopped by to thank me. Since I’m semi-anonymous, people have to look at my name tag and see “Dr. McFrugal”, in order to tell it’s me.

In particular, Susan of FI Ideas and Dave of Accidental Fire personally thanked me because a few of my posts (like this one) helped them earn thousands of miles and redeemed them for nearly free travel.

A few people even thanked me for inspiring them to eat healthier, plant-based foods. Looks like my article on grocery spending and all the pictures I post of delicious food are actually having some kind of impact!

Speaking of food, I was happy to see that there were decent vegan options close to our hotel. On our first night in town, Physician Zen and I ate at a restaurant called Amsterdam Falafel shop. It was really good.

4) Think Big, Think Rich

FinCon is full of people with an abundance mindset who think big. This includes Ramit Sethi who delivered a fantastic key note speech.

The gist of his message is this: Spend extravagantly on the things that you love and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t care about. I could totally relate to this!

Imagine spending 5x on the things that you absolutely love. Life would be amazing, right?

Sure, I am relatively frugal in many aspects of life. But I do spend extravagantly on the things that I love, like travel and the comfort of our home.

On occasions, I spend lavishly on food experiences. On the last full day of FinCon19, we ate a well-known Indian restaurant called Rasika. The service was excellent and the food was delicious. I could totally see why former presidents have frequently dined there!

 

5) All About The People and the Community

And last but not least, the people of FinCon19 are simply amazing. The community is incredibly supportive.

All of us physician finance bloggers tend to always hang out with each other because everybody is so cool. I guess you can say we’ve formed a clique within the community. This year, at least 21 physicians attended the conference. That’s almost half of the active physician finance bloggers out there!

If you’re wondering who all these bloggers are, check out this complete comprehensive list of physician finance bloggers.

In many ways, FinCon serves as a reunion of sorts. It was so great to see everyone again!

Familiar Faces

It was fun hanging out with people that I’ve met last year including Passive Income MD, Physician on FIRE, The Physician Philosopher, Victor and Kate of 39point6, Wealthy Doc, BC Krygowski, Practice Balance, Wealthy Mom MD, Cory S. Fawcett, and Doc G.

I was inspired to hear what everybody has been doing. Physician on FIRE completely left his job and will be slow traveling in Spain. It was great to see The Physician Philosopher’s family; his kids are so cute. Dawn of Practice Balance just started her sabbatical and is in the process of moving. BC Krygowski wrote a book. Doc G and Paul Thompson won the Plutus Award for best new personal finance podcast. And it was also a lot of fun to record a Facebook Live interview with Victor.

Of course I didn’t limit my interactions to just physicians. I also chatted quite a bit with other people I met last year including Michael of Financially Alert, Kevin of Financial Panther, Dave of Accidental FIRE, Karsten of Early Retirement Now, Waffles on Wednesdays, His and Her FI, Paula Pant of Afford Anything, and so many more.

I had a great time chatting with everyone.

New Faces

One of the best parts of FinCon19 is that you get to meet so many new people.

FinCon19 is where I first met Kenji and Leti of Semi-Retired MD. After hearing about all of the things that they’ve been doing lately, I was extremely impressed. I don’t know of any other couple that is as generous, ambitious, and inspiring as they are.

It was also great to finally meet XrayVsn. After interacting with each other through our blogs, it feels like we already know each other. I was thoroughly impressed by his dance moves at the kick off party. Who knew XrayVsn is such a fun-loving guy who can dance? He also invited us to join him at Rasika. Hopefully we didn’t spoil his dinner plans with his fiancee!

Let’s see. What else. I got to know Disha, The Frugal Physician, during yoga and morning workout sessions. Doctor Money Matters and I talked about all the conferences he is attending this month while eating some delicious bibimbap. I also got to hang out with Michelle of The White Coat Investor (I owe her some falafel next time).  It was also nice to meet Eliza of Minimal MD, Bill of Pivot Points MD, Barbara of Tired Superheroine and Ryan of Financial Residency.

I also got to meet in person a lot of my non-physician blogger friends like MsZiYou, Bob of Tawcan, and many more.

And I finally got to meet The Luxe Strategist. She and I are always geeking out on points, miles, and travel hacking deals online. It was great to chat with her in real life.

It was also pretty cool to meet Camilo and Francisco, the brothers behind The Finance Twins. It’s amazing that Francisco can do all this during residency!

People I Wanted To See, But Didn’t

There were also a few people I wanted to see. But unfortunately, they didn’t attend this year’s FinCon.

Last year, I met Crispy Doc and Millionaire Doc at FinCon18 in Orlando. I really enjoyed getting to know them. While I know I’ll see Crispy Doc again at WCICon in Las Vegas, I’m not sure I’ll see Millionaire Doc again. Maybe in Long Beach for FinCon20?

I also thought I might see Dr. Breathe Easy Finance at FinCon19, but he wasn’t there. He is one of the newest rising stars in the physician personal finance space, so it was a surprise that he didn’t attend.

While I suspect that conferences like FinCon are not his cup of tea, I think it would be pretty fun to meet Gasem of MD on FI/RE. His writing on his own blog is so informative and his comments on other people’s blogs are often hilarious. I can imagine hanging out with him to be both educational and entertaining at the same time.

 

Final Thoughts

As you can tell, I had another amazing experience at FinCon.

All of the value that I received from attending the conference was worth the registration fee and any other additional monetary costs of attending many times over.

The fun times, life lessons, personal growth, and community connections are invaluable and priceless.

I’m already looking forward to the fun I’ll be having at FinCon20 in Long Beach. I already bought my ticket.

Will I see you there?