July 23, 2024: FI Community Events, Life Skills through Cooking plus Community Wins
FI Community Events
The powerful quote, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” has a special place in the FI Community.
The Path to FI is simply better with friends, and when you see other people model this in real life it becomes real and attainable.
It can be done, and there are real people in your community and across the world doing it.
Local Groups:
The most immediate way to join the FI Community is to check if there’s a ChooseFI Local group close to you, and try to attend the next event. We’re seeing increased activity across the local groups, especially with the ‘case studies’ being so successful, so make it a point to get involved.
Extraordinary Events:
Katie & Alan Donegan and I are planning a series of ‘Extraordinary Events’ for 2025 and beyond. Our 80-person event in Las Vegas was such a success that it emboldened us to think bigger for 2025.
We’re planning more of these weekend events, plus at least 1-2 weeklong events in an ‘Extraordinary Location’, plus maybe an experiment like taking a group to Dr. Bobby’s wellness ranch (as discussed in Episode 498 ‘The 6 Pillars of Health’)
These tickets will sell incredibly quickly and we’re going to open them to our email list FIRST, in advance of any public notice. So, it’s really important to get on the Extraordinary Events email list today.
FI Community Events
There are a number FI Community events that I’ve personally attended that I want to make sure you were aware of:
The EconoMe conference is March 21-23, 2025 at the University of Cincinnati. This is an absolute can’t-miss event for me, so I’m locked in on going already. Get on the email list now so you can be notified when tickets go live. Diania Merriam was kind enough to offer our community 10% off if you use the coupon code “CHOOSEFI” at checkout, so just be sure to remember that when you purchase.
Camp FI weekend events are spread all across the country and are always absolutely top-notch events. There’s no way I could possibly recommend them highly enough – they are wonderful. There are still some tickets available to Camp FI Southwest in Julian, CA in early October and the first 6 events for 2025 are open for sale (2 already sold out!)
If you’re looking for something exotic, Amy Minkley is running the FI Freedom Retreat in Bali, Indonesia! I’m going in November and cannot wait; tickets sold out in 2.5 hours and were only available to those on Amy’s email list. If this sounds interesting for 2025 and beyond, get on the list today.
Here are some new events I hope to attend in the future:
Amberly Grant ran an incredibly successful FI FinTalks cruise in 2024 and she has one planned for February 2025. I know people who went on this and absolutely loved it.
I met Rob Hinds at EconoMe and he told me about this incredible event he’s putting on in early October in his native Australia called Tribe FI Australia. Alan & Katie Donegan will be among the speakers, so if Australia is on your bucket list, maybe this event is the chance to make that happen?
1% Better: Building Life Skills
[Note: This section is from a 2020 newsletter, but it’s notable this week because I remembered the 1 minute video and personally cooked some chicken this week with Gordon’s method and it was absolutely delicious]
Our latest obsession is the cooking show ‘MasterChef Junior’ with Gordon Ramsay.
Early in Season 6, Gordon demonstrated how to make an incredible pan-seared chicken breast. My daughter Molly is learning to cook and wanted to test this out. The next night she gave it a try (with some help from mom and dad) and to say it turned out well is an understatement!
This was the best chicken I’ve eaten in my life and it was so easy to make! It was just about having the knowledge and the interest to give it a try.
Molly is 8 years old, and now, for the rest of her life, she can cook a piece of chicken like the best chef in the world. She followed an interest and simply watched the YouTube replay a few times, took notes, and tested it out.
This is how we all can continue to build life skills to keep getting 1% better every week!
ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week
My 1% better is actually 41% better!!! I completed Alan & Katie Donegan's Extraordinary Life course several weeks ago, and started making some goals. One was that I wanted to make 6-figures. Not even 2 weeks later, I was offered a promotion by my employer, moving from asst manager to branch manager at a different location.
That alone was pretty cool, but I had no idea what to expect for a salary offer, so I tried to get an idea of the market salary, and I had a range ready, thinking I'd need to fight for 15%. I also planned to ask for compensation for a U-haul since I'm only moving about an hour away.
Well, they came at me with a 41% increase in salary plus a much bigger moving allowance than I ever imagined (which is intended to pay for a legit moving company and help me furnish a bigger place). It also came with a couple other amazing perks.
Of course, I KNOW I should always ask for more, so I did :) I was able to negotiate for them to pay for all my gas, which is extra helpful for a 40 mile/day commute. Yay!
- Karina
My 1% better this week has two components and a bonus about compounding. I wanted to increase my personal data security by participating in a local paper shredding event. I dug through all our old files and gathered at least 20 pounds of documents to be shredded.
The second component was finding a life insurance policy for my mother who passed away 4 years ago. It was a Prudential policy, so it was pretty easy to get the claim started. It went smoothly once they had the proper documents and I spoke with a couple of claims representatives.
The bonus is about compounding. Her policy was written in 1948 for $500 (with a 24-cent a week premium). It was a whole life policy that used dividends to purchase more insurance. Payout all these years later was just over $8,000.
- Chris
My 1% was that I opened a High Yield Savings Account and will be moving my Peace of Mind fund there and I will set up other goals as well.
- Vicki
My 1% better is so much more than 1%. My wife and I pursued IVF treatment outside of the United States. This choice was inspired by the medical tourism episode, and after researching we found that the clinic we chose in the Czech Republic had higher success rates at a fraction of the cost compared to the clinics we contacted in the US. The cost difference was over $28,000 for the initial procedure, and about $14,000 less per addition implant as we had remaining eggs for additional implantations.
On our third attempt we are happy to say that we are currently pregnant and look forward to becoming first time parents this fall. We cannot quantify the benefit of receiving the positive pregnancy test and seeing the anatomy scan ultrasound.
This would not have been possible to do with the costs in the US, and to top it off we were able to travel to Europe using travel rewards and see some amazing places and meet incredible people. All in, 3 trips to Europe including the vacation and medical procedures was less than one attempt in the US.
We encourage anyone who is having infertility issues to look outside of the country and especially in the Czech Republic.
- George
I have wanted to start a YouTube channel for years. I finally pulled the trigger and started posting videos. I found iMovie wasn't able to do some of the ideas I had. I discovered that I am able to get professional-level editing software free through work, which would otherwise be about $25/month.
- Giselle
My 1% better this week was changing my automated contributions to my Roth IRA from a monthly contribution to a weekly one. Instead of having $540 drawn from my checking account at the top of every month, I've adjusted it to a weekly contribution of $125 every week.
While the math works out pretty much the same, it's a LOT easier on my peace of mind and it helps me sleep better at night to see smaller, more frequent contributions from my checking account.
- Josh