Where Huw and Richard plotted world domination…we reckon!
Just a brief update of the FIRE Escape event I attended on Saturday, organised by Huw.
Location Location
Gaer Hall was a fantastic location, set in some beautiful Welsh countryside and only a short journey for me (just over 1.5 hours). Of course, being in the middle of rolling fields, my sat nav didn’t have a clue where it was and there were no signs pointing to the property, so it was just as well that Huw put a ‘marker’ out for us (a traffic cone on a wheelie bin!)
Met up with some old friends (Huw, Lou, Richard, Emma, A+Z and M + baby) from previous gatherings and also met some new faces (Michael and Martina). Unfortunately, I managed to miss OR who left just before I arrived!
Food Glorious Food
I must say that I didn’t pull my weight at all with any of the cooking, but the others did a superb job, in particular Michael who baked loaves of bread while everyone was still in bed, including soda bread and Guinness bread with cheese and apple – well tasty!
My minuscule contribution was that I brought along a few bottles of my latest homebrew beer, which seemed to go down well with some!
Good Times
In all, I had a brilliant time. As we had the whole place to ourselves, I was able to spend time chatting to everyone. It was good to be talking about money, pensions, blogs (yes Emma and Michael, time you started your blogs!), financial independence, early retirement, investing, current affairs, Kindle publishing, matched betting, affiliate marketing, forex trading, DIY, BTL, P2P, some other acronyms (!), etc without feeling like a bit of a weirdo!
It was all really informal, the atmosphere relaxed and friendly.
I came away from the weekend buzzing with ideas and motivation.
Whilst I loved the gathering we had in York, renting out a place for the weekend made financial sense and as we didn’t waste time going from pub to pub as we did in York, our time was spent talking rather than walking!
Anyone who’s considering one of these gatherings, I highly recommend it.
A massive thanks to Huw for organising it all and I hope I’ll be able to make the next one that he organises.
6 thoughts on “FIRE Escape in Wales”
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Hi Weenie!
Nice to see your write up of the weekend. As a newcomer on this occasion I have to say how welcoming I found everyone and how refreshing I found it being able to bring up conversations about finances, investing and FIRE plans without fear that I was about to bore someone to sleep! Like you I came away buzzing with so many ideas and things I wanted to read/try, I had to make notes when I got home so I didn’t forget. I would thoroughly recommend coming along to one of these weekends to anyone who is still thinking about it…
Hi OR
Glad to hear that you enjoyed your first gathering. I recall I felt a little weird (and a bit apprehensive) at my first one as I didn’t know what to expect, but everyone put me at ease. I’ll be trying to attend as many as these as I can (within my budget of course!). Hopefully I’ll catch you at a future one!
Hi weenie,
Sounds like another great weekend, shame we missed it but as you know we had other small yet very important things to attend to 🙂
I agree on the hire out your own place format, even though I only popped into the last one it seemed to work out much better for me.
Cheers and hope to see you at the next one, wherever that may be!
TFS
Hey TFS
Haha, all is forgive, you had a valid excuse for not turning up! 🙂
Hiring out our own place is the way to go – I wouldn’t mind if it was back here again at some point, thought it was ideal!
Hopefully see you at a future one!
Hi weenie,
Randomly stumbled upon your blog a few days a go.
I’ve always thought about financial independence and as a previous HL employee, know a few things about the industry.
That being said, I have been meaning to recommend matched betting to you. I know you have a history in betting (me too!) but I find matched betting fulfils the gambling but you always make risk-free profit…. The site I use is profitaccumulator – It’s brilliant!!
Anyway, hope to start a portfolio soon but have been busy with lots of other stuff…
Take care,
Andy
Hi Andy
As a customer of HL, I’d be interested in what you know about the industry! 🙂
I’ve been putting off matched betting, having been stung a while ago but I’ve decided to give it another go and yes, I’m using Profit Accumulator. Am taking things slowly right now but I’ll include info on how I’m doing in my March update next week.
I still enjoy a bit of a gamble – the first test will be the Grand National, which is where I put my bigger bets!
All the best with starting your portfolio (funds from your matched betting?) and thanks for stopping by.