Step one: Decide that spending a few thousand dollars per year on conferences is excessive. Step two: Discover that if you lived in Brooklyn there would be a c

Step one: Decide that spending a few thousand dollars per year on conferences is excessive. Step two: Discover that if you lived in Brooklyn there would be a critical mass of colleagues living right there in town with you, such that you could put on an awesome local conference for one or two hundred dollars per person. Step three: Move to Brooklyn, at a cost of an additional N hundred dollars per person per month, regardless of whether that month includes an awesome local conference. Step four: ????? Step five: Profit! (Mind you, I completely agree with your strategy, which is why I live near Boston. I could tease myself just as I'm teasing you. ;) But I don't try to pretend that the strategy is designed to save money. Living in proximity to a number of excellent local conferences and meetups is very expensive - though, of course, you also get the awesome local restaurants and shops and museums and university libraries.)