More Money Podcast - 3 The Shopping Ban - Cait Flanders from Blonde on a Budget

Episode Date: June 3, 2015

Cait Flanders from the popular personal finance blog Blonde on a Budget and I talk about her recent debt pay-off, her shopping ban and her new simplistic lifestyle. Long episode description: I really looked forward to having Cait Flanders from Blonde on a Budget on my podcast. I think she was actually one of the first guests I approached to be on the show and she said yes right away (thanks Cait!). Not only is Cait one of my all-time favourite personal finance bloggers, we’ve also become really great friends over the past few years. She is seriously just as genuine in-person as she is on her blog, which is why I think we get along so well. I’m a give it to me (and give it to you) straight kinda gal and Cait is definitely one of the most honest people and bloggers I know. Not many people could write about getting themselves out of debt and embarking on a shopping ban like she does. A bit of background on how this episode came together, I actually recorded it on site in Vancouver. I went to Vancouver in March to visit my family and while I was there I had a bit of free time. So, I asked Cait to come over and we recorded this episode together. I was pretty nervous because this was the first time I’d ever used all of my podcast equipment by myself (I previously relied on my audio engineering husband), but luckily I didn’t mess anything up and it went pretty smoothly. Besides Cait being a friend and a favourite blogger of mine, the big reason I wanted her to share her story on my podcast was because it is so relatable. She racked up a bunch of credit card debt, had to move back in with her parents, then started blogging about her situation as motivation to get out of the hole she dug herself. And she did it, and continues to live a more financially responsible lifestyle which includes a shopping ban and living like a minimalist. We mentioned a few resources on the show, so I wanted to include them below. And if you’re just getting into personal finance and budgeting yourself, I highly recommend checking out Cait’s new Mindful Budgeting Program below. It’s a super handy tool to help you start budgeting with your best foot forward! Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Mo Money Mo Houses, the personal finance podcast with a dash of sass. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse, and today I have a very special guest. Many of you may already know her as Blonde on a Budget, but to me, she is my friend Kate, and I'm very excited that she's on the program today. How are you doing, Kate? Thanks for being on the program today. No, thanks for having me. You're welcome. So the reason I wanted you on my show was I think your story is super inspirational to a lot of people. You start out with a bunch of debt. We're able to, you know, get yourself out of it. And now you've kind of changed your lifestyle to be more sustainable and to save as much money as you can basically so let's let's kind of go from the beginning

where did this all start for you um so yeah let me think it was just before the summer of 2011 um i was 25 just about to turn 26 and um yeah like kind of just doing normal things I was finishing school I had one year left to finish my degree off um but I was kind of living this like unsustainable lifestyle back then of just overspending um and it was one of those things like I'd known it you kind of know in the back of your head that it's happening you know that you're spending too much money um and yeah so I was just kind of swiping for whatever I wanted and finance a brand new car and damn did all that stuff and all the things you're supposed to do or think you're supposed to do when you're when you're 25 and then uh it all caught up with me and I was maxed out with just over $28,000 of debt.

Oh, so did that include student debt? Yeah, I'm really lucky. Well, lucky. I mean, I only ended up having about $4,500 of student debt. I had, I did school really differently. Like I did school kind of, well, like broken up. Like I did a twoyear diploma at first when I was like 19 and I was still living at home for that so I walked out of that with no debt um and I was still working full-time and stuff like that doing that and then I took a few years off and was just working um and like making like decent money I was working for the provincial government and decided to go back to school and do the last two years so I could actually finish up my degree in communications um and and yeah so the way that it worked in government is that

they paid for five thousand dollars of school I mean my degree was like it was like almost 20 but yeah that's nice it was nice they paid a little bit of it. And yeah, so didn't have too much student, mostly consumer. Yeah. And so when was the moment you're like, oh, crap, I need to turn this around? It was like really obvious for me. It was very vivid. Like, I'll never forget it. I was like around the end of April. I knew that I was close to being maxed out. I'd say for months leading up to it, I'd been ignoring my credit card statements. So they would come in the mail. And I remember like peeling back like the top corner of them. And like just looking inside so I could just see what the minimum amount was. But I never looked at the balance because I was like too scared to see what it was. And yeah, like the minimum balance, I can't remember, but it probably was creeping up to like 175 bucks or something. And that's just your minimum. And yeah, so I just remember like, like knowing that I was going to have to ask my parents to move home. And then literally the day that I moved home, I got a credit card statement.

And I remember sitting down and finally opening it up and looking at it. Because I'd had that gut instinct for so long that like the situation just wasn't good. Things were not where they were supposed to be. I knew how tight my budget was. Like I just was in a lot of trouble. Finally looked at it. Saw that I was like within $25 of having, of trouble finally looked at it saw that I was like within 25 dollars of having of being maxed out on my credit card um and yeah and I mean like I'd I'd moved back

home with my parents you're not feeling great about that at 25 um it was not a fun day and then so at what point after that I guess did you kind, okay, I need to figure out how to pay down this debt. And when did the blog kind of come into that? goal of it was like like I was thinking of it the way that someone who wanted to lose weight would track their food or their calorie intake or their exercise or something like that like I was like I need to log in and every day or every few days like just keep track of what I've been spending um how much debt I've been paying off and and you can go back like I've like purposely left them all there because they're awful but like but that's what it was like the blog was like just these like weekly spending reports and it wasn't meant for anybody like I never well I never thought it would be anything

that it is now but it um yeah it was never never supposed to be something it was just something that you wanted to do to keep yourself accountable exactly Exactly. And then it just kind of blew up, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, it obviously helped me throughout the entire thing. I know for a fact that I would never have gotten out of debt as quickly as I did if I hadn't had the blog. And so for two reasons. One is that obviously I was being accountable to myself. But then I also felt this, as I got readers I felt this huge sense of like I needed to be accountable and do this for other people and I had all these like amazing people like at first just kind of like local

and then in Canada and then all over the place who were like rooting for me and I'm like man like I gotta make this happen they can't let these people down I can't not get out of debt exactly but but it also it changed the way I was spending a lot like I remember especially because those silly little weekly spending reports but I'd be like out maybe thinking of shopping or something and I'm like you know oh my god I do not want to spend like 80 dollars on this and have to write that down and so I wouldn't I wouldn't shop because I'm like well I don't want to tell him when I did that so I better just not do it that's a good way to do it it's awesome yeah so yeah so no and so it you kind of kept that up how long did it take you to finally reach zero um I made the last payment it was within like two weeks of the two-year date from when i'd started my blog so i just say it took two years yeah that's and that's amazing for how much did

you say like 25 28 000 and then like um i was really weird the way that i paid it off like i did things probably not the way that any expert would tell you to like pay off your debt like i had 28 000 so broken down it was like i had,500 for school which was actually just money my parents had lent me and I hated owing people like physical people absolutely right like it feels so different when you owe a credit card company I mean it sucks that you're being charged interest but owing actual people money is the worst feeling in the world I agree so when I asked my parents if I could move home I said like I want to pay you guys back um and also my parents had no idea how much debt I had but they knew I owed that and so I wanted that wiped out um so yeah you do did things backwards here's this like debt with zero

percent interest but I needed it gone first and then I slowly started working on um credit cards uh combined with um yeah I focused on credit cards and then I had two loans left over at the end. So I had my car loan from when I thought it was a really awesome idea to finance a car. And then I had a personal loan from actually like two years before I was maxed out. I'd realized I was almost maxed out with about $12,000 of debt. And I got a loan to consolidate it. And like I'd given told myself I would stop spending now that I had it all consolidated into one loan. But then, of course, I didn't drop the limits on my credit cards or anything. And so I just went back to my normal spending ways. Yeah. So, yeah. So now two years, I did it all backwards the way

that you're probably supposed to. But I feel like, especially with things like that, that aren't so personal, you kind of have to, you know, see what the experts say, but also do what makes the most sense to you. Otherwise, you won't do it. If you're just following someone else's guidelines step by step, you need to, you know, kind of change things up so they make sense to your lifestyle. Otherwise, you're just not going to keep it up and you're going to stop and then get back to your bad habits, right? Yep. No, and it's true. So sometimes I think I'm like, you know, I'm sure that I paid too much credit card interest during that time if I'd focused on paying that one down first. But then I'm like, meh, like it just, it all worked out. Yeah, it's like at the end of the day, it all worked out, right? And so I remember when you were getting close to that, you know, paying off all your debt number, you're like, I don't know

what I'm going to write about because you'd been talking about debt for two years and you're like, what's the next step? And so what's really cool to see is your next step was basically totally altering your lifestyle to, you know, another really great goal is to, I mean, you talk about it. You explain it better than I do. Yeah. Well, we'll start at the beginning. Like I remember as I was inching closer to like paying off my debt, I remember thinking I was just going to stop the blog altogether. Yeah, that's right. And I'd written about it and like told people that that was going to happen even. And the reason for that was because I had this idea that like no one would want to read like, oh, I've saved X amount per month or people would think, I don't

know, it was weird. Yeah, you might lose some of your debt followers. They're like, well, I'm still in debt though. Yeah, exactly. So I just felt like it would be weird. And so, yeah, I remember thinking that I was going to get rid of it. And then I'm really glad I didn't. I don't know what the switch was of deciding to keep it but then yeah I just had this general like or like thought that it would be weird or different like life after debt would

be different so there would probably be things to talk about definitely um and then it didn't all change direction right away I actually like it took like a year of being debt free for me to then look at my savings account and like your goal is like or what you you hope to do or plan to do is like when you pay off all your debt all the money that you were originally putting towards your debt you'd all of a sudden start putting into savings when I didn't do that and I'm like there's there's no good reason for it yeah um you know I let lifestyle inflation creep in you know there were months when I was in debt repayment that I was putting up to like 55% of my income towards debt.

Wow. Which is actually like, that's probably too much. It was a lot. It was a lot. And that's not sustainable either. Really, right? Like, so of course it didn't make sense that all of a sudden I'd start saving 55% of my income.

But I was saving like a max of 20 there were many months where I looked back at my budgets and it'd be like I saved eight percent yeah you're like where'd it go I'm like and I'm also like like I know better than this like and I and I have savings goals and I keep talking about them but I'm not actually getting anywhere so you know I kind of looked around my place like it started with that I remember looking at my place one day also getting frustrated like you know when you just lose the stupidest little things in your house yeah why can't I find them yeah like I could not find a can opener and I live in a one-bedroom place by myself and I have like I have one drawer with like utensils and

cutlery so like where the heck is that freaking can opener when you can't find that like you're in trouble yeah so I remember getting so frustrated thinking about uh how much stuff was in my place and um like physically being able to see little things that I'd spent money on throughout the year of being debt free and none of it was like amazing or good investments. Like I'd see like candle holders or like, I don't know, just little things. Were there lots of things that you'd buy and you totally forgot you bought? Because sometimes that happens to me. We're like, I forgot I bought that. Why did I buy it?

Not too much. Although I used to like stockpile toiletries. Okay. Right. So like not tons. Like you see crazy like extreme couponer shows. Oh my God. There's stockpile toiletries. Okay. Right. So like not tons. Like you see crazy like extreme couponer shows. Oh my God. There's stockpiles and they're so proud.

But no, but I could like, well, I remember it because I did this massive declutter that we're going to talk about. So I did this like massive declutter and I remember toiletries being insane, like just adding up the numbers and like for visual effect I like poured them all into my bathroom sink and took a picture of it because it was overflowing and I'm like I am one person and also lotion what the heck is with lotion personally coming from BC no living in Toronto like I understand living in Toronto you need your lotion because I am crazy dry here there but I never once used moisturizer here because you do not need it because there's like water in the air here you don't need lotion so i use lotion but like

barely any but i had like 12 bottles or something and like all these different kinds and you're looking at them though i'm like why do i own these like i don't even like half the scents like or they're like just not my style or whatever like it's just anyways so yeah you stockpile these weird little things because you're sold like so much of it is like you're sold into the marketing scheme of it right like it's have it's a beautiful package or this or that and it's on sale yeah for me it's like I walk into shoppers getting you know wanting to get one thing but they're like but this is on sale I may need it I may run out of my you know whatever shampoo and then you buy it and then i forget to buy it i'm

like why do i have that shoe god damn it yeah yeah yeah so yeah so no i just um yeah i looked around my place and just realized like how much stuff i had i'd also i mean this is kind of off topic but i'd also in 2013 i moved five times that's crazy and when you move that many times you continually pack your things in these boxes take them to a new place unpack them look at them again and you're like after your fifth move you look at it all and you're like what is all of this like in my last four homes I didn't even need most of this stuff yeah and in my place that I'm still in now that was the last place I moved to like it was sitting in closets like a storage.

Like it was just I just had extra boxes of stuff in the closet that did nothing. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. So the blog's taking a very weird shape now. I like the shape. It's just about, yeah, I think it's great because there aren't, like in my perspective, there aren't too many blogs out there that are for the people that have like successfully finished their debt repayment. And they're like, now what? I mean, you know, I feel like when you're looking at different personal

finance blogs, there's lots of different niches like couponing or groceries or real estate or whatever, but there aren't too many specific ones where like, this is how you should lead your life after debt repayment. Yeah. So one of the things that I thought was especially interesting about your kind of new blog framework was you're kind of you don't have that debt repayment goal, but your new goal is this year long shopping ban. So let's get into that. Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, man. So what day did you start your shopping ban? I started it on July 7th, which was my 29th birthday. So you did not go shopping on your birthday I did not I did not treat myself on my birthday you know started the next day no nope um yeah I started on July 7th so it'll go till July 6th and so what does this shopping

ban entail like obviously it sounds like you just don't go shopping for a year which sounds awful but I'm sure it's not awful like it's a pretty positive thing those are the rules yeah there's one rule in shopping ban no shopping um yeah no i so it was interesting so i'd like two things happened like one is i did this massive declutter like i went through all my stuff in my place i was like i have too much crap let's get rid of it all where'd you get like how'd you get rid of it do you just like donate it or yeah I donated almost everything like you toss things like when you find like socks that have holes in them like that goes in the garbage I'm still bad with that I'm like it's still good I'm like no Jessica throw those socks out so there were like things that went in the garbage um otherwise there

were only a couple of things I sold um things that i knew i could get like a hundred bucks for right but then like clothes shoes books honestly like i i filled my car i think two and a half times like literally like passenger seat to the trunk like just filled it and drove it and dropped it all off um yeah i just thought like i mean i donated some places were like Value Village. One was like Canadian Diabetes, like places that I know it's still going to go somewhere. Yeah. And that at least part of the money or whatever will help someone else. So, yeah. So in doing all of that, the first thing I did for the shopping ban was actually created a list of a few things I knew I would have to buy.

Like I kind of was able to look at the year ahead and say, you know, I have like, I have six weddings to go to. I have like one dress. I don't want to wear one dress to all these weddings. Like I'm going to get one more so I can at least swap off. But I actually had like no pairs of ballet flats that were decent. So I was like, okay, well I need a pair of those. And you have a couple of things. Oh, one was a new bed. If if i could save enough money for it i was allowed to buy a new bed my bed was like 13

years old it was just an awful condition it was it had been time to go for like three years so i was like if i can save for it and make it possible we'll make that happen um but yeah otherwise like no clothes no shoes no bags no toiletries unless it's like something i use and run out of um weird things i'm like no nail polish because i would have like that weird habit of like again it's when you look back and it's all marketing stuff right like it's like you walk by i'm like well i know i'm out of eyeliner so you pick up an eyeliner and then you're like oh but nail polish is on for five dollars and like i don't have that color yeah yeah that would be really cute this summer and i'm not even that girly so the fact that i like like nail polish is kind of weird i have like a

box of nail polish and i never wear it exactly but again yeah all my moves i bring it i'm like why am i bringing these nail polishes i don't even know how to properly put it on legit it takes me an hour to fix it so no exactly so uh nail polish was on the list i'm not allowed to buy candles the biggest thing for me was no books yeah that's gonna be hard it was that was honestly of of anything else books were the toughest thing for me because um again it sort of goes back and i've talked about this on the blog a lot but it goes back to habits like i wasn't really in habits of shopping for anything else. I was never one to like go to the mall and just walk around and look for clothes.

But books over like, I don't know, the past X many years, it's been this habit of mine where like the minute a book comes out, I go on Amazon and just buy it. Like I just, you just do. It doesn't matter if I have a stack of 50 that I haven't even read on my bookshelf. It's like when one comes out and I want it, I would just get it. So that was a serious habit. Oh, and then especially once I had a Kobo, like as soon as I had an e-reader and then it's literally like three clicks, I think, to buy an e-book. I know, it's too easy. So to change that habit was huge. And so that was a big one that I felt.

And then another weird one where a lot of people still don't get it or why I did this was I did no takeout coffee, which is also just huge for me. I believe it because most people buy one a day. And it's one of those things that just creep up on you and you don't realize how much you're actually spending. Yep. And so for me, takeout coffee was I remember when I was in debt repayment mode, like I was, you know, I'd said I was living on such a tight budget and was allocating so much for debt repayment, but I'd always given myself this little allowance for takeout coffee. So it's like I'd allowed myself to like, I don't know, keep this little habit going.

Not too much, but you know, it was like I i had 60 a month or something like that but um yeah as as soon as i was debt free i was kind of like i can have coffee whenever i want now and then like i don't even know the number i mean we could go back and like look at all my my statements but i don't even know the numbers i'm like i probably spent a hundred at least a month on coffee or something so it was just too much so take out coffee had to go the only time i was allowed to have it was, um, if I was in another city. So like where I didn't have access to a coffee maker. So, um, like I work, I'm in Vancouver, but I work for a Toronto company. So if I was in Toronto, then I was allowed coffee. Um, but yeah, so there was a lot of no's. Yeah. A lot of not, um, yeah,

not allowed to buy a lot of stuff. Did you find just having all those no's very restricting? Like, did you find like, I don't know, just living your day to day was like a little bit more difficult or was it easier than you expected? I think for the most part, all of it's been easier than I expected. Um, like I said, like the book thing was the toughest cause that was a habit um other ones have like all crept up like i've had like weeks where you know i'm like oh like i don't really feel great in my clothes and you kind of wish like if you went out and bought something to make you feel better yeah but then when you can't you actually are able to look at things like you

know why i don't feel good this week it's because i haven't been eating well this week i haven't been sleeping well this week or i haven't been drinking enough water it's like yeah I just don't look good or you know what I mean like it's not usually actually about the clothes exactly it's like something physical that you're actually feeling so yeah the like delayed gratification like forces you to look at what else is going on um so no I'm like it's it hasn't been tough um just very eye-opening i feel like i'm like constantly i don't know it's just like my brain of being self-aware is just on like i just it doesn't have all that stuff to kind of clutter and i do i totally agree and i love that you're doing this because i feel like i've kind of done a little bit of this like simple lifestyle not

so much in choice but you know when me and my husband moved from Vancouver to Toronto we literally had to sell all of our stuff we didn't know how long we were going to stay in Toronto so we just tried not to accumulate anything that we didn't need and I've only bought like two books and we've been there for almost two years so I only try

to go to the library or like get something that I can read on my Kobo or whatever and it's honestly kind of freeing because you don't have a bunch of stuff like we have a tiny apartment anyway so we really don't have any place to put any stuff but it feels nice because without all that stuff you don't have I don't just feel like it clutters in my mind and so with less stuff you're like you can just kind of focus more yeah that's exactly it and like that's been like it's like for me it's been like there's two things that have coupled together so like I got rid of all my crap but then I also wasn't allowed to bring's been like, it's like, for me, it's been like, there's two things that have coupled together. So like, I got rid of all my crap, but then I also wasn't allowed to bring anything new in. So it's like, I've been forced to live just this, just like with what I have,

right? Like, you're just forced to live with what you own. And I go to the library all the time now. I actually joked a little while ago, someone that like, because like, I honestly leading up to this, I don't think I'd been to the library since I was like, 12 years old or something. Like, because like, I honestly leading up to this, I don't think I'd been to the library since I was like 12 years old or something. Like the minute I had a job and made money, like I just bought books. But then I was joking with someone because I got my library card just before the shopping ban, but I got my library card. And now like I go so often that I got my new MasterCard in the number, but I'd memorized my library card number from like ordering books. That's amazing. Before. And I still don't know my new MasterCard in the number, but I'd memorized my library card number from like ordering books

before. And I still don't know my new MasterCard number. So I think that's kind of a win. That's amazing. I'd say it's a win for the shopping ban. So have you, like, since you've been doing the shopping ban, like how long has it been? Like almost, almost a year. You're, you're almost to that year point, I guess. Yeah. I'm at nine months on april 7th your shopping van baby is about to be born yeah i had to i'm ready to pop but have you looked back at your financials and seen because it seems like you're not so much focusing on the money portion you're focusing on the lifestyle but has kind of the money just like oh it follows

it's kind of worked itself out because of the lifestyle change yes there's a couple things i haven't blogged about this yet but there's a couple things i've noticed um about my budgets one is that i'd kind of just i'd set this goal that i was going to do my budget differently so the but yeah i did it because I had this great conversation with my sister we were talking about how much money she made and how much she was saving and she she said something to me like you know I'm but I'm saving 20% of my income so I can do whatever I want with the rest and as soon as she said I was like but do you actually need 80% of your income exactly like it's great like she was 20 when she

said this so like it's amazing that you're saving 20 of your income but do you act like at 20 and living at home going to school do you actually need 80 of your income yeah probably not no yeah so the minute and like just that little conversation the minute that like like switched off in my brain i was like i want to try and live on less like continually try and live on less and then and it's not even just because I'm saving all the rest but I just I want to focus on the living part like absolutely because what I would find is that and everyone does it but we create these budgets that where we like allocate for every dollar that we spend and yes like usually savings is in there and

all that but we allocate for everything i i think the problem is that if you have in your budget that you're allowed to spend you know a hundred dollars on personal stuff it actually like in in i'm just thinking this stuff right now i actually think that it makes people think okay well i have a hundred dollars to spend this month but some months I might spend $12 on myself. And on myself also means like shampoo, conditioner. Like some months since the shopping ban, I don't spend anything. Like unless I've run out of razors or like something I actually need. So I keep looking at my old budgets and thinking like if we are looking at our budgets like this and we just see that we're allowed to spend money is it making us spend money yeah and i don't

know if the answer is like yes but the fascinating thing has been just since i've started it i'm now living on probably between like 47 and 50 of my income wow whereas before like i was saying like i was saving like a max of 20 sometimes only eight yeah and it's just like so we spent the rest or you know yeah exactly so now i'm living off less than like 50 or less and i usually travel a little bit like i traveled a lot like you travel quite a bit but some months i haven't but like you know i'll maybe a few percent up to like i've percent up to like, I've had up to like 20% go to travel if I like am going to a bunch of places.

But I have been saving at least so far in 2015, I've been saving consistently at least 40%. And I think until the shopping ban's over, I'll be able to maintain that to at least 35% to 40%. And, and yeah, so that's like where the sustainable part comes in right like it's just like because i'm not allowed to shop that's great i'm not spending money but i think it just really forced me to like look at the numbers differently yeah like it just made me focus on like you know i only want to like spend x amount a month and it doesn't include my whole

freaking paycheck yeah yeah you know like i only want to spend a portion of it yeah no i think that's a good way to look at your finances because yeah sometimes we just allocate money like okay this is what i can spend this is what i have to save this is whatever but yeah if we give that spending money a specific number do we feel obligated to spend that each month and sometimes yeah sometimes i'll i'll look at you know my budget and my bank account and be like oh i still have 30 to spend. Instead of thinking, oh, I could put that in the bank. I'll like think of something. I'll be like, oh, I can treat myself now. It's like, hmm, well, do you even need that really?

And that's like really common. Like I think when I think back on that, I'm like, that was my exact mentality when I, you know, got my first job when I was like 14 or 15. You know, like you get like a couple hundred dollars and you're all excited about it but you look at it in your bank account with zero thought of saving it you look at it you're like oh i have 200 to spend and then leading up to your next payday you're like i have eight dollars left to spend like so it's this mentality that we get right from when we start making money or at least lots of people that I talk to about it but like we get it right from the beginning and it goes all the way to the end like it or is until we decide to try and do it a little bit differently yeah that's just how it always is yeah it's always

about spending what's in there yeah so once you hit that date of your spending bands over what's kind of I guess the next big goal i guess one of the big goals will just be trying to maintain that after being in such an aggressive you know lifestyle but what's kind of next do you think that's like really tough i would say like right now the goal is just to see if i can maintain it um it's been so long now that I, I genuinely know that I like, I'll never be the type of consumer I was before. And that's really cool. That's really cool.

There's just like no way I could ever go back to it. Especially when you're just, when you're forced to see what's going on, there's no way I could go back to being like mindless about my spending. Um, so yeah, it'll be maintaining it. Um, I don't know if I have like crazy goals. Like, excuse me, I have a friend who kind of jokes is like, oh, if you're saving like 40% of your income, you'll be one of those people who like early retires like in their 30s or something. I'm like, well, no. I'm starting from square one in savings. You know what I mean? Like I have

savings, but I don't have like $500,000 yet yeah yeah I don't even have one yeah like so that's not happening yeah um and I don't really know if that's like a goal I think it'd be pretty cool though I guess one day if I could make it so that I was saving 50 percent yeah um I guess that'd be more possible the more money you make and everything and yeah that's awesome so no I think it'd be more possible the more money you make and everything. And yeah, that's awesome. So no, I think it'll be maintaining it. Well, I think that's a pretty big goal and it'll be cool for, to follow your blog and just see you doing it. Cause I feel like it's, it's cool to read and see someone do something like that.

But I think it also encourages lots of people to try it out themselves. So I'd say that's the biggest thing with money in general is that everyone, I don't know. And I used to think this too. It's like, you look at all this stuff that the experts say and stuff like that. And you think that you're supposed to follow this like specific set of rules. But like, that's what I love about personal finance is like the word personal, right? Like everyone does things differently. Even if like two people did their budgeting similarly, it's never going to be exactly the same. And so I'm like, for anyone who's like thinking about like doing anything with their finances, it's like,

just try it, like try it, try something out and see if it works. If it doesn't try something else, like people, you know, they used to say like, um,

you know, I could never budget. I'm like, I actually guarantee if you like track your spending for like a month, you could probably write a budget. And then it's like, now people are always like, oh, I could never do a shopping ban. I couldn't even do one for like a week. I'm like, I guarantee you could do a shopping ban for a week.

Yeah. It's like if I can do it, you can do it. Anyone can do it. You just have to want to do it. Yeah. And just give it a chance. And but your shopping ban can be different. You don't have to include takeout coffee. Yeah. You could keep your coffee that's cool and you also i remember reading one of your blog posts and you had there was like a checklist or something it was like or it's like simple living 30 things you know yeah the 30 day

minimalism challenge yeah that was so cool so it's actually not mine this other blogger i can't remember her name but the site's called I think into-mind.org I think that what it was she's out of I think Germany or something um and yeah it was just a 30-day minimalism challenge of these little simple things of you know some of them are just like you know try and journal for 20 minutes so just being more mindful um to going barefaced like don't for girls like don't wear any makeup not a problem with me i know it's like uh done i know i put like three things on and that's only if i leave the house i work from i put mascara on for you just so you know i work from home so there are like weeks where i don't put anything on

um but yeah it's just it i'm I'll have to write about it when it's done, when my 30 days are done. But that's been really interesting too. Just, again, just changing habits and more of it for me has been, it's like, yeah, removing mental clutter. I'm like kind of obsessed with that right now. No, I think that's awesome. Especially with like just the normal kind of lifestyle that people have. You've got your computer, your phone. There's just things pulling you in a bunch of directions. But little do we know that most of the time we're so busy, but we don't even know where we're busy and we're not even really accomplishing anything or just, you know, years will go by and you'll be like, what did I do? And you're not conscious of

your being. So I think this is really awesome. did I do and you're not conscious of your being so I think this is really awesome the mindfulness thing that you're doing I think the well like the connectedness thing is kind of bang on right like it's especially in our generation but I noticed it because I would I would take these um like Epsom salt baths and I would get out of them half an hour later and not really remember relaxing or doing anything. And it's because I was on my phone. Oh, yeah. So I'd be like, that's when I would like check email or check Twitter, reply to a bunch of texts or talk to a friend or whatever.

And I'm like, I actually like the reason I take the Epsom salt bath is to relax. Yeah. I can't spend 30 minutes without my phone. Yeah. That's a problem. That's a problem. Yeah. But it's a normal problem that, you know, most people self-included that's for sure yeah some of the little challenges

have been yeah they've been great and made me so much more productive awesome yeah all right well thanks so much for joining me today this was awesome It was so great talking to you. If any of y'all don't know Kate's awesome blog, it's blondeonabudget.ca. And you know me, my blog is momoneymohouses.com. And if ever you want to chat, just reach me on Facebook or Twitter. And thanks for joining. And I hope to see you guys or well, I'm not going to see you because you can't see me, but I'll talk to you guys soon., I'm not going to see you because you can't see me, but I'll talk to you guys soon. How's that?

All right. Peace. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.