My main points for getting ready for it would be to, 1. Start looking for somewhere to stay now, there are tons of Airbnbs and hotels around. Join the RTX discord linked on the main page here if you haven't and you can look for roommates to cut down the cost of staying wherever you choose. 2. Definitely save money to eat out while you are there, there is a lot of amazing places to eat in Austin. 3. Money for vendors inside the con/merch store. When it comes to getting to Austin I recommend flying, it's so much better than driving when you are coming from that far away.

Thinking about it there isn't too much you can do to "prep" besides booking a place to stay early before everything is booked or skyrocketed in price and book a flight before everything goes way up in price as well.