Not meant as anything against you, kudos for trying. That is certainly not what I meant, just sharing how I evaluated making the trip for me personally and why I did not attend. It does seem there is not a very active FIRE community here is CLE, at least not one that ever looks on MMM. I may peek at the ChooseFI chapter as with their podcast they do seem to have more activity as a national community. My issue (and perhaps others) is that I am well into the autopilot stage where I just sock away what I can and check on my NW to post here in the tracking threads, so I am not looking for new ideas. That's also part of the "problem" with FIRE and simple personal finance. Once you realize this is really not that hard, that it is all about maintaining a savings rate and keeping spending in check you can learn or teach someone everything they ever need in about an hour, so again not like an investment club where we pretended we could pick stocks and presented on them and made ourselves feel like we had control over the uncontrollable. Once you realize there is no secret you are missing it all becomes pretty basic.
I would just like to meet like minded people who are frugal and savers. To me that is the value of meetups to get more people in my life who are not spendypants.
Thanks for explaining. I was pretty feeling pretty cranky. I'm over it now. I've been keeping an eye on the ChooseFI folks and it looks like they are about to have an event. I'll post back here with a link if that happens.
I'm in very much the same boat as you. I could RE today, but working because I'm not convinced the stache is big enough, even though I sort of know it is. But also, I want to be traveling abroad and that's not really available for the moment. I can also do some good in the world by donating surplus income, which keeps me motivated.
I would also like to meet more frugal people and learn more about how they entertain themselves when not working.
So not checked the boards since at least this time as it was in my "new replies to post" feed.
Just reading the last line and also my last line, for some reason the thought hit me. Not sure if it has any relevance but is my reality so tossing it there for folks to think on.
I think folks who truly "get" the FIRE movement and embrace it are then also ones who would have a hard time justifying just spending money to eat and possibly drink just to meet. I'm not a big drinker (at all) so I never go to bars etc. except for a work event that was there and I had to attend. I do like food so going out to get some with my wife is something we do to entertain ourselves. For me I guess the challenge of the typical spots is what I shared above. I'm regularly evaluating options in my life against each other. Is that time that I need to be away from my wife and just doing what I do more enticing than not? The biggest hurdle is there are no relationships in this group as friends or such that would change that equation so it becomes a very ow bar to not choose a MMM meetup over nearly any other known quantity. As stupid as it sounds I'd me more likely to show up to a meetup at a library or park (when it's warmer) where there is not an expectation that I need to spend money on food etc. as it just removes one more reason in the equation to say I'm spending money needlessly with an unknown benefit. To give you another example of how frugal folks entertain themselves, I read (free, library books great CLEVENET access), have some streaming for entertainment ($24.64/month for Hulu and Netflix, plus 3 year prepaid Disney+), and then play sims on my computer. I do things like American Truck Simulator and Farming Simulator (coming up on 2,000 hours in that one). With the latter found a terrific online community that hosts persistent servers that run in real time. The server I am a farm manager on, has 6 of us, and they are from all over the world. Some have had babies, been through COVID, job issues, child issues, in short just daily life. There is a bond there that is a type of friendship and I find my self wanting to talk to the guy from Northern Ireland who is studying to get his CDL and change careers, or the one from Sweden who raises a few horses as a hobby with his partner and who has two little toddlers who've been sick for the last month. Then we help each other out in the sim as I was helping him bale and store his hay just yesterday for hours. I'd love to meet them in person. Why? Because I've gotten to know them and have a relationship. So that meandering story that seemed a bit random come full circle to the point here.
I'm not sure that until people start connecting in some way that the tipping point will be reached to meet in person over any even slightly more than trivial distance. As I said, if there were ten people here on the east side who set up a time and it took me 10 minutes to get there, I'm enough of an extrovert that I'd be there in a heartbeat. After all I understand that great friendships can develop from random meetings too. But for whatever reason that is not the hand I've been dealt in life right now, as everyone is over on the far more boring (IMO) west side. For a non-Mustachian the west side is wonderful. Lots for restaurants, places to shop, places to drink, places to waste money I'm not interested in wasting. I love to virtually farm for hours and be on voice chat or typing chat with folks and get to know them while sharing an experience we all enjoy. If someone we find a way to connect a group of us in a chat or some virtual activity then driving to me a blukraken who I know his real name is Joe and who used to play little league as a kid like I did and loves baseball and we can lament about the atrocity that seems to be coming to MLB with adding the DH to the National League then I have a bigger draw for me to get out of my house and meet him to talk about Mustachian things. I've got to care about meeting you more than I care about reading the next chapter of that book with my wife or watching the next episode of Big Sky with her that has been sitting on our PlayOn server ($60 for lifetime commercial free playing of Hulu) for two months because we just are not that focused on TV. But there is not even enough motivation for Clevelanders to get to a keyboard on their phone or their desk and regularly type out a few words here, so I think the barrier is just too high for a real meetup until that changes.
So that's me sharing my thoughts on why I think this thing never goes anywhere when folks try to set a date. It's not you. It's the barriers each of us have and the opportunity costs we all weigh that keep us choosing something else over meeting up. I've seen it in journals on this board. People have met, sometimes while traveling to the other side of the world, because of chats they have had here, but they talked every few days. So let's flip the dynamic a bit and see if we can't get all of us feeling a bit more connected and wanting to meet that person behind the keyboard in person. You've tossed out the first idea "what do frugal people do to entertain themselves". I've shared mine. Who's next?