Reflections from Attending the 2023 Econome Conference

Hello readers! If you’re new here, thanks for stopping by. If you’ve been reading my blog for the past few years, thanks for sticking with me. 🙂

A huge part of being in the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement is community. Finding other people that are on your same path, or a different path with the same goal is extremely valuable. Especially if people in your normal every day life don’t “get” or understand where you’re coming from. That’s why I decided to attend the EconoMe Conference from March 17-19th, 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio. I took a few weeks to reflect on my thoughts about the conference.

It Helped Me Realize How Many People Are Into FIRE + That I’m Not Alone

You might be the odd person out in your family or group of friends because you’ve decided to opt out from the capitalist society that exists in the USA. Or, you might get taunted by turning down opportunities to go out to expensive dinners or happy hours and be called “cheap”.

Everyone can have a different experience, but building a community of people on the same general path is something that I wanted to do as well as learning from those ahead of me in their Financial Independence (FI) journey.

Sometimes, you might feel that you’re one of the few people trying to spend less money, make more money and invest the difference so that you can opt out of full time work when your investments can cover your daily expenses. It was so refreshing to attend each session, workshop or catch lunch or dinner with people I had never met before but was able to become fast friends. Which led me to the next point…

Most People in the FIRE Movement Are Kind + Want to Connect Others

I’ve never felt so at ease at a conference before attending EconoMe. I usually dread ice breakers, making small talk or getting food with people that I’ve never met before. But the cool thing about the conference is that everyone there was into personal finance, retiring early, and we all had that similarity. We all were “counter culture” and didn’t have to worry about being shunned due to our views.

From the moment that I arrived at the conference the night for the Seeking Fire film screening, I made a new friend that I ended up eating all of my lunches and dinners with along with attending some sessions with for the entire conference. Throughout the time, I met dozens of other awesome people that were all friendly, open and interesting along with other FI content creators that I’ve listened to for years including the founder of EconoMe, Diania Merriam (who is in the photo with me).

Perhaps one of my favorite moments of the conference was the lunch meet up on Saturday afternoon that was hosted by Bitches Get Riches. I got to have lunch with awesome people and share my personal story and connect with other people (mostly awesome women). This isn’t something that I would normally do in my every day life, but it was amazing.

There’s Many Ways to Achieve Financial Independence

This is something that I fundamentally knew, but it became even clearer to me that there are sooo many ways to achieve FI. The workshops, sessions and chats were very vast and had experts that were experts on credit card hacking, real estate, financial empathy, lifestyle design and much more. It helped to expose me to some people that I had never heard of and helped me to think much broader than I did before the conference.

In my opinion, I was able to choose pieces of each session that apply to me or that I feel I could try out to help me reach early retirement. I don’t have to follow a set path but I’m able to create one that works for me. was very satisfied with the diversity of speakers as well. There was an amazing mix of individuals from multiple ways of life that I was able to learn from.

Focus On Building the Life That You Want Now on Your Way to FIRE

Too often, people can have tunnel vision and be stuck in the investing phase until they reach their FIRE number. A lot of people can be so focused on being financially free that they sacrifice their own, happiness and comfort in order to meet their final goal. I’ve heard of multiple people talking out about this and how they wish they would have slowed down to enjoy their journey because every day is special and we never know when our last day on this Earth might be.

I really loved the session by the Fioneers, who are a couple that focus on Slow FIRE and designing a life that you will truly love. Their session focused on the question “What would you do if you didn’t need to work for money?”. Then, we had to form groups of three to workshop our answers and share with each other and the room. We also went over the stages of financial freedom which starts at debt freedom all the way to full financial independence. It was refreshing to not focus on the money but on the life that I wanted and also to figure out how I could have that life now.

In conclusion, I absolutely loved the conference and can’t wait to attend it again next year. I’m going through my notes and pictures from each session and will start implementing my learnings. I’m going to try my best to stay connected with the people that I met. 🙂