Camp FI Texas: A Very Late Recap

About a month ago, I was able to attend and speak at Camp FI in LaGrange, Texas. When I first heard the location, I immediately heard the guitar riff from ZZ Top’s “LaGrange”. Anyone else, anyone? If you are like a few camp members I met that had never heard of it, well, hear you go, LaGrange. It’s a great rocking song, but I digress…

Camp FI seemed like a good alternative to Fincon for me, and I was hoping it would be a nice Personal Finance (PF) recharge, with being around like minded folks, talking goals, dreams, life, and of course money. In short, I was not disappointed! It reminded me of the newbie feeling I had at my first Fincon in Dallas. I came back from that conference and wrote this post about how I Found My Tribe and this felt very, very similar. In fact, unless I get more active with the blog, I don’t see a need to attend Fincon anymore. Gasp!! If the thought of thousands of people swarming around looking for Vanguard bags and mugs freaks you out, try a Camp FI. You will not be disappointed and here’s why.

Camp FI

What is Camp FI? It’s basically an inclusive PF get together with a handful of speakers and a LOT of people that are on the path to FI, already retired, or just FI curious. With only ~3 talks a day, the schedule never seemed overbearing, or intrusive on people hanging out and talking outside of the presentations. There was plenty of free time built in and oh my goodness were there ever a LOT of conversations about life, money, and the meaning of happiness.

The one I attended was a 3.5 day retreat styled event held at a Christian retreat center outside of Lagrange, Texas. There were lots of bunkhouses, cabins, event center, dining hall, a pool with a massive slip and slide, archery course and more. When there was free time during the day people hung out and played disc golf, talked, swam, played music, or whatever struck their mood. It was a very chill laid back atmosphere from beginning to end. I found it to be as invigorating as attending Fincon, if not more, because there wasn’t a lot of extraneous BS going on to distract from hanging out with like minded people. Also, there was no massive list of presentations, panels, forums, event halls, to add more FOMO to the event.

Except for the speakers, and a couple of others, the attendees weren’t all bloggers either. It was awesome getting to connect with non-bloggers (no offense to my blogger peeps, but you guys have this figured out already right?) and literally get bombarded with questions. I talked MORE at Camp FI than I did at either Fincon, and I know some wouldn’t think that’s possible, but it was. I was literally talking from about 8am until ~2am every day.

My Talk

I wasn’t too sure what I was going to focus my talk on, but I knew it would have very little to do with “retirement” and more to do with finding and creating a lifestyle that fits you and your family. We swore off early retirement a few years back when we realized that we didn’t want to retire early per se, we just wanted to escape the trappings of this god-awful lifestyle we had created for ourselves. I mean, we’d “made it” on paper anyway. We had great jobs, were paying off debt, focusing on FIRE, and living life, but when we moved to Houston, oh man… It turned into a life we didn’t want to live.

Our commutes were long, short for houston but still 30-70 minutes each way depending on traffic, our days were long clocking in at 11-12 hr days from walking out the door to walking back in at night, and we had almost no time to get to hang out with the kids. I mean, what’s the point of having kids if you don’t get to see them, interact with them, spend time with them, and watch them grow and develop. That’s not a kid, that’s just an expensive pet, at that point (bring on the internet backlash for that one, lol).

That’s what I started my talk focusing on, The Why of FI. Shortly, it switched to “Making Personal Finance Personal” which is still very much about finding your why. Who cares if you save a lot of money if it doesn’t enrich your life, or someone elses life, the whole point of pursuing anything in this PF space is to enrich your life right? Whether it’s paying off debt, and removing that stressor, or saving for Early Retirement (ER), or saving to achieve FI and have FU money to start a new business, side hustle, or push harder for that promotion/tranfer at your current job.

Making Friends

I’m an outgoing person that will talk to a fencepost if there’s noone else around, I mean, I had grandparents pay me if I would stop talking for 2 minutes. Shocker to no one, I never got paid… Camp FI was no exception and I think I talked with almost every attendee at some point that weekend. It was really awesome hearing about everyone’s journey’s, goals, and life plans. And surprisingly, not everyone wanted to retire early. One couple wanted to open an ice cream shop in a cool locale, another just wanted a better lifestyle, and even more just wanted the freedom that FI gives to pursue whatever passion they may be into at the time.

It was cool getting to talk about my journey post-full time work, and how I’m involved with school as a Watch D.O.G., PTA Secretary, and general volunteer. I’m involved with cub scouts as a co-leader of the wolf den and treasurer for the pack, and I’m involved with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), and am a sworn in, active CASA working my first case. I had just applied to the unicorn job prior to that and I was able to talk about how it wasn’t a lack of being bored that led me to apply, rather the job just looked like a lot of fun and a really cool job.

Overall, I made a LOT of friends and had great conversations that entire weekend. Bonus, I didn’t even lose my voice! Yay!!! Maybe because I wasn’t trying to talk over the noise that is inherent at a gathering as large as Fincon. IDK, but I’ll take the little win!

I Need More of This

I don’t do well at making friends. Well, I can hit it off with pretty much anyone, but I have a hard time finding real friends, connected friends, people I can talk with and be open and not worry about any judgement, especially when topics surround money, being FI, and goals to doing more with life beyond saving a shitload of money. It’s awesome! As I’ve alluded to before, both Fincon’s and the Camp FI gave me a recharge and fed my PF soul. I love that. I haven’t felt anything that great in a while and it’s why I like hanging with my PF peeps, whether it’s at their place, a conference, a local restaurant, or a retreat setting. It’s nice to feel at home and welcomed somewhere.

I’m not going to go as crazy as some of us in the PF community (I’m looking at you Overmeyer, lol) and criss-cross the country seeking these things out, but I definitely will make it a priority to attend more of these events. I hear Montana is even more beautiful when it’s not hotter than Houston… I keep having PF Twitter peeps moving to cool locales, informal New Orleans hangout anyone, and need to get more active in the physical PF world, not just here on the blog and Twitter. And no, I still don’t have Instagram… It just seems like an even bigger Timesuck than Twitter. Eeep!!! Although I was told I could essentially write mini posts there along with the pic, so maybe… Maybe… I’ve also been told I need a Youtube channel, and that seems way more realistic to start. My only problem is remembering to film things BEFORE they are completed. For Example: Finding Jasmine (our turtle) under a log, setting up a terrarium for her, and describing all of that BEFORE it’s completed. Bwahahaha Soon though, soon….

Summary

I had a blast attending this event and it was definitely what I needed. It’s so validating attending an event like this, and being able to be open and free about yourself, money, life ambitions that don’t involve becoming a LinkedIn All Star (Ahem, @Stevenomics), and more. To me this was one of the best PF events I’ve been to, for just that reason. If you’re waffling between Fincon, or a smaller PF event, look for those. If you’re more intimidated by those events having a lot of male figures and you want more female friendly events, look at Cents Positive for a female only PF event. It seems to get amazing reviews and has an even “looser” format than the Camp FI. In a world that can seem dominated by PF events, find one that you think best suits you and find a way to attend. You won’t regret it, that’s for sure.

What PF events have you attended that I didn’t mention? I know there are MANY, feel free to let me know in the comments below and include your endorsement or “buyer beware” with it.