As you guys read this, I’m headed off to my first FinCon in five years!

I could not believe how fun FinCon ’14 was in New Orleans and I’m super excited to see what D.C. has in store.

I’ve also found prepping to head out to FinCon has turned into one of those reflective moments in life.

If you’d ask where I thought I would be in 2019 back in 2014, I don’t think I would’ve had an answer. I think I would’ve been pretty surprised to still be blogging.

In those five years though, my stage management career has done pretty well. So well, in fact, that it’s been the main reason I’ve missed the last four FinCons.

My blog has made more money than I ever would’ve guess this fun little side hustle could bring in.

I have totally different goals going into FinCon now too. In 2014, I wanted to go to all the seminars. Learn all the things!

In 2019, I want to chat with all the people! And I’m particularly interested in meeting some people who do a lot of public speaking. After being on my first panel in June, I realized I have a lot to learn, but I kind of like it.

In 2014, I’d just finished paying off a bunch of debt, lived in a stupid expensive city, and had to be super careful about my money at all times. I even had to figure out side hustles so I could afford to go to FinCon.

In 2019, I’m solidly financially stable. I randomly decided on July 31st that I would go to FinCon if I could still find a discounted ticket because I knew I could afford the trip with no issues. (Still kinda frugal though, definitely crashing with my circus BFF in her D.C. apartment for the weekend.)

In 2014, I was super focused on how big I could build brokeGIRLrich.

By 2015, I realized I was unlikely to be able to build brokeGIRLrich anywhere near as big as planned while stage managing and that stage managing was currently more important to me. I came to terms over the next year with the fact that I actually like the size and amount of effort the blog currently takes.

That might not sound like much, but in the PF world, it felt wildly counterculture to be like, “meh, $500 a month or so is plenty of income from this. I don’t need to spend hours of my life optimizing things.”

My actual biggest blogging success story happened this past year and it had nothing to do with money!

I was speaking at a community college (about stage management) and towards the end of the talk, their current stage manager snuck into the back of the class. As I wrapped up, I just mentioned in passing that they would all have an easier time with things after college if they started figuring out how their finances worked now.

And I handed out a bunch of brokeGIRLrich pens.

The local stage manager came up after class and said it was awesome that I promote brokeGIRLrich’s blog because she’s got the best personal finance blog for stage managers and she’s read every post.

She had no idea I was brokeGIRLrich. Best compliment I’ve ever gotten and it made me feel pretty good about sticking it out over the years.

At FinCon ’14, my biggest takeaway was all the incredible people I met. I have never met such a huge group of helpful, talented, all-around-amazing people.

Seriously though, it’s just rooms and rooms full of people who want to help you.

I’ve tried to take that spirit and apply it to my blog. It’s really easy sometimes to think that no one is reading your blog and why are you even doing this and what is the point in trying to write out a simplified guide to setting up an HSA – IS ANYBODY EVEN OUT THERE?

Yeah, they might be.

So if you’re headed to FinCon this year too, please say hi! I’m incredibly introverted, but if I also recall correctly – there’s no shortage of libations to help overcome that.

What conferences or workshops have you felt were worth every penny when growing your business or side hustle?