Around the FI Community

I wanted to do a quick roundup of some of the ways you can get involved with the FI Community either through online communities or, depending on your comfort level, ‘in real life’ meetups & events:

ChooseFI Local Groups:

The lifeblood of the ChooseFI community is the 300+ Local Groups we have in 300 cities across the world. Obviously the last 18 months have made meetups nearly impossible, but that is changing as we've seen groups get creative with outdoor events, and you can still join your closest local group to get involved in the community online.

The Simple StartUp Winter Challenge

Rob Phelan’s The Simple StartUp course for young entrepreneurs is back open for enrollment! This is an 8-week interactive online course running January 12 – March 9, 2022. 

If you have a budding entrepreneur at home (generally ages 10-18), looking to gain real-world skills in starting a business with little to no startup costs, then you need to look into TSSU.

Rob will be on ChooseFI this coming Monday to talk about TSSU and you can go back and listen to Episode 308 where we chat with Arianna about the business she started during the course.

Camp FI

For the past five years, Stephen Baughier has held Camp FI events all throughout the country.  Pre-2020, I attend five of these 3-day weekend events and they are always a highlight of my year.

There is an event in Texas in 10 days and it looks like the entire slate of Camp FI events are scheduled for 2022.  Check out all the details at CampFI.org.

EconoMe Conference

Past ChooseFI podcast guest Diania Merriam has put together an amazing event for the FI Community called EconoMe.  It’s a two-day conference running November 13-14 at the University of Cincinnati.

The amazing lineup of speakers includes Mr. Money Mustache, Paula Pant, Kiersten Saunders, J.D. Roth, Mr. 1500, Naseema McElroy and many more.

Diania kindly offered our community a 10% discount on tickets if you use the code "CHOOSEFI"

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

• Christin said, "My 1% (possibly more!) better is that after making some poor decisions with my credit card this summer, and then feeling guilty and using my $1k emergency fund to pay it off....2 months later my credit card balance is $0, my EF now has $2k and I picked up a part time seasonal job outside of my 9-5 job to help with the rest of my debt snowball journey."

• Lori said, "My win this week was finally sitting down with my boss to review my salary. Just getting a meeting took more work than Id care to admit. It has been six years since I got a raise, and for about the first four, my quality of life (schedule, hours, and just all-around freedom) made the lack of raises worth it. However, the past two years have become a constant strain on my motivation, and I have feared that even though I have great hours I was nearing burnout. The lack of recognition of a job well done has started to cause my morale to wane. So, I provided comps, stated my case, and wasn’t willing to back down. I did get a raise, but the true win came when my fairly new coworker, and ops manager, called me after the meeting to tell me that I’m a BADASS! He gave me props for being respectful, assertive, and determined. For me, its not about the money although I do hope that helps my morale a bit it’s about the fact that I know my worth, and I’m afraid to say it. Thanks to the ChooseFI community for helping me finally have the guts to stand up and ask for what I want, and thanks be to God for letting me get through it without losing my cool!"

• Amy said, "My 1% better this week is taking advantage of the trip interruption benefit with my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. Through this podcast, we found out about the Chase card and opened an account last November. In June, we visited St. Lucia for our summer vacation and was stuck on the island for two extra days due to Hurricane Elsa. After 2.5 months of back and forth with the claim department, we finally got our 2 days of lodging and meals reimbursed by the credit card company. The check is now deposited in my bank account, our perseverance finally paid off!! Thank you Brad, Jonathan & the FI community; learning so much every week."

• Brian said, "My 1% better is actually 140% better. I am a retired teacher with 32 years of experience. The district is desperate for competent long-term subs. Rather than accept the going rate I negotiated my per diem at full current salary. After declining 3 times, on the 4th time they agreed. I'll be making 2.5x as much as normal. Thanks. I knew my worth and negotiated from a position of strength. Thank you ChooseFI."

• Kyle said, "My 1% better this past week was exploring car insurance options and effectively lowering my projected insurance costs by 41%. Over the course of COVID I started working from home permanently and reached out to my provider this week about more cost-effective options since I only go into the office twice a month. I kept an Excel spreadsheet over the past year, logging my monthly mileage, and it showed I only drove about 5,400 miles from Sept. 2020 through Sept. 2021. My agent recommended to me a newer "pay by the mile" plan which I didn't even know they had. I calculated the projected variable costs combined with the plan's fixed costs of the flat rate premium to compare my current costs vs. this new plan based on overall cost per mile. My new plan is effectively saving me .05c per mile driven and luckily there is a daily limit of 150 miles so I don't get dinged too badly if I want to take a long road trip!"

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