FinCon18 Budget / Buy Nothing Challenge September Edition

FinCon18 Money and Food Diary

FinCon18 was a fantastic experience and by far the most costly expense of September. Thus, I’m adding to my usual buy nothing challenge update with a fun FinCon18 money and food diary.

Housing, transportation, and food are generally the biggest living expenses for the average person or family. Expenses for FinCon18 were no different.

In fact, housing, transportation, and food were the only things I spent money on at FinCon.

Let me break it down…

Housing – $537

FinCon18 was located at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando. Attendees of FinCon18 were offered the event discount rate of $159 a night.

However, there was an additional room tax of $20 that you have to pay. So essentially, the room was really $179 a night.

I spent only 3 nights at the hotel since I wanted my baby daughter’s first trip to be short and sweet. So 3 nights x $179 per night equals $537

Now, if I were extremely frugal, I could have stayed at another place.

I did hear that some people only spent $10-20 a night for accommodations by sharing an AirBnb with people. That’s pretty awesome!

But that wouldn’t have worked for me. First of all, I brought my family (wife and 6 month old daughter) so it’d be kinda weird to share a room with a complete stranger. Also, I value convenience. It was a luxury knowing that my room was only a short elevator ride away. That way, I can go back up to the room in case my wife needed help with the baby. It also allowed me to stay up late at night to chat and bond with my new friends. And of course it was super convenient to simply roll out of bed, take the elevator down, and walk over to the early morning sessions.

In my opinion, staying at the hotel for the convenience alone was worth every penny. Not only was it convenient, the resort was beautiful, the rooms were clean, and the staff was friendly.

Transportation – $127

Airport parking is pretty expensive.

In the past, we would simply park at my wife’s office building in downtown. Then, we would take an Lyft/Uber for 2 miles to the airport. It was beautiful because it would only cost us about $5.

Nowadays it’s a bit different. After having our baby, my wife took a 14 month maternity leave. Because of this, we no longer have the luxury of parking at her work.

So we paid $72 ($18 per day x 4 days) for airport parking.

In addition to that, we paid $55 in Lyft fares:

• $22 from Orlando International Airport to Rosen Shingle Creek Resort
• $8 from Rosen Shingle Creek Resort to Cuba Libre Restaurant (site of physician blogger’s dinner)
• $8 from Cuba Libre back to Rosen Single Creek Resort
• $17 from Rosen Shingle Creek Resort to Orlando International Airport

To cut down our transportation costs, our flights were essentially free by using the Southwest Companion pass. My wife’s flight was paid using points and airfare credits from our credit cards, I was her free companion, and our baby flew for free as a lap infant in arms.

Food – $185

Day 1

On September 26, our day of departure, we went to the airport early. Everything takes just a little bit longer when you have a baby. So we arrived at the airport with a lot of time to spare just in case.

It was lunch time when we arrived and my wife and I were both hungry. As we explored the various options I noticed they had The Counter, a burger restaurant that I used frequent when I was living in Los Angeles. They had vegan burgers too, so I had to try them. We ordered two vegan burgers and a side of sweet potato frees. It came out to be $28.

When we landed in Orlando it was time for dinner. Because it was already late, we ate at the Chipotle in the airport. We ordered two veggie burrito bowls, which came out to be $16. (Pro Tip: If you order the veggie burritos or bowls without meat, Chipotle will throw in some guacamole for free.)

Day 2

On September 27, we bought a hummus sandwich, a bag of chips, and some water from the onsite market for lunch. $20 total. That little market in the resort was expensive!

We also ate some fruits and Kind bars that we had brought from home.

In the afternoon, I went to a physician bloggers meet up happy hour at the bar. I had one beer, which was $7.

That night, we checked out the restaurants within the resort complex. Tobias Flats Burgers & Brew had a vegan burger. In addition to the burger, we had a salad. Total bill was $35.

Day 3

On Friday, September 28, our lunch was provided for us by FinCon18. I had a veggie wrap that was just okay. There were some fruits and nutrition bars in the lunch box too.

Later that afternoon, my wife and I wanted to celebrate something special. I received a call from my chief earlier in the day that I was promoted to a stipended pain position. This essentially gives me a 10% pay raise, which is substantial. Needless to say, I was thrilled.

So we went to the Mi Casa Tequila and Taqueria Bar, which was inside the resort. We ordered the mushroom tacos. The tacos were so delicious and the mushrooms were so tender. They were the best mushroom tacos I’ve ever had. We also had tortilla chips with fresh guacamole prepared right before our eyes.

And of course, we had some margaritas too! They were huge!

The total bill at Mi Casa came out to be $54. It’s easy to spend a lot of money when alcohol is involved. It was a total splurge, but it was worth it because we were celebrating a great accomplishment.

That night was also the physician bloggers dinner at Cuba Libre. We shared the vegan paella which was excellent. Since we shared one entree and didn’t order any drinks (we had a huge margarita just hours prior), the total bill at the restaurant came out to be only $25.

Day 4

We basically woke up, got out of bed, quickly packed, then headed to the airport. Our flight was in the late morning and we wanted to allow ourselves plenty of time to get there. For breakfast, we ended up eating the fruits and left over snacks that we had accumulated through the past few days.

 

Total FinCon18 Costs

I bought the pre-sale discounted basic tickets to FinCon18 which where about $200.

So total costs were $200 (tickets) + $537 (housing) + $127 (transportation) + $ 185 (food) = $1,049.

 

Non FinCon18 Related Spending

To paint an accurate picture of our spending for the entire month of September, here is the breakdown:

• Gas – $45 (We mostly drive the Tesla, so this expense is always low)
• Clothes – $0 (Still haven’t bought clothes)
• Groceries – $150 (Not too shabby)
• Restaurants – $140 (Not bad)
• Parking – $68 (I had to pay $17 each day to park at the Plant Based Healthcare Nutrition Conference, which was a 4 day event. I talk about this great experience here.)
• Entertainment – $39 (We went to see Crazy Rich Asians at the movie theaters and bought popcorn and drinks. The movie inspired me to write this article.)
• Baby Stuff – $0 (Essential baby stuff has already been bought or gifted to us and we cloth diaper, so no recurring costs from diapering)
• Personal Care – $95 (My wife bought a skincare products from Luminance. She likes the brand because it is vegan, organic, cruelty-free, raw, and non-toxic… all of which align with our values.)

Of course another expense was quarterly estimated taxes, which were due in mid-September.

In reality, taxes should not count towards our monthly consumer spending since it’s an expense related to earned income. But if you’re curious to know how much of an expense taxes are for our household, you can find out in one of my previous buy nothing update posts here.

 

Summary

In total, we’ve spend more than we usually do in the month of September.

Our food expenses totaled to be $475 which isn’t terrible compared to the spending habits of the average American consumer.

Additionally, we have been spending a little bit more on entertainment, personal care, and other areas of discretionary spending. But that’s okay. We are still relatively frugal with respect to our income. I would consider saving 50% of our after tax income pretty darn frugal!

And with my 10% pay raise, we can afford to loosen up the purse strings a bit. After all, while it’s great to save for the future, it’s also important to enjoy life right now.

But rest assured. Even though you may see an uptick in our spending habits in the future, we are still committed to spending on mostly non-material purchases that align closely with our values of conscious consumerism. 🙂