I've been in the accumulation phase of FI for ~2.5 years since I became enlightened and during that time have slowly influenced and convinced some of my friends and family that it REALLY IS POSSIBLE. Occasionally one of them will ask to meet for lunch because they're "getting older and want to start making progress rather than just maintaining", financially speaking. I'm apparently becoming the go-to guy for this (which is very flattering). Each conversation ends with a "hey, we should check in every once in a while for ideas and accountability". I figured these few dispersed people would probably like to get to know each other and have a lot in common so I posted a little facebook status saying "message/comment/like if you've got any interest in a little FI/ER meetup".
Well, people are coming out of the woodwork on this one! I seems that more people than I thought are pretty interested in this idea. There's a lot of variety so it could be a great experience to get them all together. I just want to make it as galvanic as I can, and I need some ideas! I don't want this to be a tupperware party orI a pyramid scheme meeting where I talk about "a great opportunity!", but I also think it deserves to be a little more than a chill party with no focus. Have any of you done anything like this before? Is there a good rubric to follow. I'm not a super experienced host, but my wife and I do have people over every now and then and she's great with food so I'm confident it won't be *terrible*.
My ideas are:
1.) Send out a survey asking what people are interested in (frugality, investing, sustainability, self-reliance, social consequences).
2.) Ask a few people (me included) to prepare 10 min or so to describe their method
3.) Find out if anyone needs the basic primer (Shockingly simple math behind ER) or if it's a more advanced crowd (IRA conversion ladders)
4.) Most of all I want to be encouraging and welcoming. I know some people like their work, some don't. Some have kids and will be working 30yrs regardless, some (me) want FI ASAP. Some are only really interested in the investing and wealth creation, some only in permaculture and extreme frugality.
So how would you pull this off? Gimme your best ideas please? (Also, I hope this was the right sub-forum. . . )
