Saving Up for The 2012 FinCon Conference

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Registration just opened up this week for the 2012 Financial Blogger Conference and I ordered 2 tickets for the event. 

Last year's conference was fantastic – not only did I get to meet some of my online colleagues in person, but there was an incredible amount of information I gathered.

This year looks to be a bigger event and the location chosen, Denver, makes this a ‘must attend' conference for us.

Investing in Yourself and Learning from Others

It's not just about taking notes at sessions and creating a to do list to use at some point in the future. To me, it was about implementing what has worked and testing it out on my sites.

Honestly there wasn't a session that I attended that I didn't get some practical guidelines to use.

Budgeting for a Work Trip

Even though the main reason for going to Denver is for the conference, we still plan on saving up for it as we would our vacations, meaning they're debt free. To have a debt free trip means we have to save and budget now, before we get to the conference. Some expected expenses include:

When planning the upcoming trip, please consider all the major and typical expenses for budgeting.

• Hotel
• Plane Tickets
• Food (we tend to overestimate to play it safe)
• Local Activities
• Misc. (Emergencies – hasn't happened so far, but always included)

It can look to be pricey, but we found that planning ahead save us money.

Plane Tickets

Last year we drove up to Chicago from our home. We had a small baby and with all the baby gear we had, the plane tickets would've been way out of our budget.

Instead, we opted to drive up and gave ourselves plenty of time to get there. It allowed us to see a bit of the Mid-West. Our baby girl was comfortable and managed to sleep most of the car ride.

This year, though, we're getting plane tickets. I checked and a direct flight is about 3 1/2 hours and the prices are not much higher than flights with stops. We're willing to pay a bit more to get to Denver sooner and to avoid having our baby girl cooped up in a plane for a long period. So far she's been great on trips, but I'd like to minimize her opportunities for a meltdown.

As per our vacation routine, we'll start checking out Priceline for our upcoming trip to see if we get a deal either through their regular deals or with bidding.

Hotel

We haven't decided yet if we're going to stay on site for the conference (which is downtown at the Grand Hyatt).

Activities

Last year I didn't have as much time as I wanted a meeting with others. As a mom of a 2-month-old, I was distracted with taking care and bonding with my baby and work. (My husband did a fantastic job watching her as I attended the sessions- love you honey! )

This year I'm hoping to meet up with blogger in small groups of 6 or so, perhaps for meals and outside the conference doing some activities.

If anyone is interested, please email me and I'll set up a few meals and activities and post them up here so others can join. If you're interested in being interviewed for Couple Money or My Financial Reviews, please let me know as well. I'd rather meet up and get to know people better.

Thoughts on Work Conference

How many of you are attending a work conference this year? Which conference is it and where will be held? If you're self-employed, how do you decide which conferences to attend?