Happy Monday Morning Dinks. I have officially been home from FinCon for one week and after a somewhat traumatizing experience in Denver, Colorado I am ready to share my experience. The elevation in Denver, Colorado was not pleasant. However after 6 migraine pills, a litre of water, and 13 hours of sleep I was ready for Day 2 of FinCon. I attended a total of 10 sessions throughout the weekend which included Alternative Monetization Ideas for your Blog with Kylie Ofiu, Secrets of a 7-Figure Blogger with Ramit Sethi, and How to Land Big Corporate Campaigns with Will Chen from Wise Bread.
Here is breakdown of my FinCon costs:
FinCon Conference Ticket: $149
2 Night Stay at the Denver Grand Hyatt: $241 including a $16 dollar French toast breakfast in bed one morning. The Denver Grand Hyatt is a great hotel and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Denver, although I would not recommend visiting Denver as a city if you don’t have to.
Round Trip Flight on United Airlines: $100 because I used frequent flyer miles and therefore I only had to pay the taxes and airline fuel charges.
Total Spending: $400 which includes meals, airport baggage costs, transportation costs to and from the airports, and personal shopping. This total includes $180 in cash spending and $220 on my TD Bank Debit Visa card. No interest costs and no credit card spending.
Total Cost for FinCon: $890
That may seem like a lot of money for a financial professional and a personal finance blogger to spend in only 3 days. You are probably asking yourself the exact same question that I asked myself when I got home from FinCon in Denver, Colorado…could I have spent less money?
Yes, of course I could have spent less money. I could have saved $44 if I had taken the bus to and from the airports in both my city of Montreal and in the conference city of Denver. However the convenience of taking a taxi cab or shuttle service was worth the cost of not getting lost or delayed on public transportation.
I could have saved at least $100 on food if I would have eaten at the conference events and packed snacks for the airport. However, I am a vegetarian and my eating habits are naturally picky, so I prefer to take a break from the conference and eat foods that I love. I am also the type of person who will do anything for an extra 15 minutes of sleep; I got an extra hour of sleep every morning by eating in my room instead of eating at the scheduled conference breakfasts. But that’s just me.
I could have definitely saved money on my personal spending but I like to take advantage of my time spent in the U.S. I love shopping in the U.S. because there are so many stores and products that are just not available in Canada. I bought my favourite Dream Angels Heavenly Perfume from Victoria’s Secret, I bought a bottle of Ciroc vodka for my boyfriend Nick, I spent $55 on candles and body wash at Bath & Body Works, and I also bought an NBA Denver Nuggets T-shirt for my boyfriend Nick. I spent most of my money shopping at Rite Aid and Walgreens because there are a lot of cosmetics and grocery items that are not available in Canada. I came home with 5 different boxes of cereal including two boxes of Coco Puffs and a box of Wheaties.
Photo by audrey belenko
Kristina Tahnyak
Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.
I was really sad to hear about your experience in Denver. You weren’t the only person that I heard about who was affected by the altitude. I live here and it’s a fantastic place. I do think that it would have been helpful to let people know about the affects of Altitude Sickness and how to avoid it. We didn’t meet this year, but hopefully next year at FinCon13! I hope you will visit again. If you do contact me! I also write a blog about Colorado.
@Michelle – I had no idea why I was sick but then my boyfriend Nick told me that athletes who visit Denver for an away game often get sick from the altitude. LOL! I would love to read your blogs, please send me the links. Thanks for reading Dinks.