MMS058: Can Minimalism Help You Save Money?

[INTRODCUTION]

[00:00:02] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Money Mastermind Show. Let’s Talk Money!

[MASTERMIND]

[00:00:19] GC: Welcome to the Money Mastermind Show. You may have heard about the minimalism movement — that’s a lot of M’s there all at once — that’s been going on for a few years now basically, I want to say since the recession hit. I think minimalism is really kind of taking a forefront in a lot of people’s minds towards personal finance.

But what you might not have heard is how good it is for your wallet. A lot of people have done it, maybe out of necessity rather than as a conscious choice. We’re going to talk about minimalism today and we brought on an expert in that, Cait Flanders of Blondeonabudget.com. Welcome to our show Cait.

[00:01:01] CF: No, thanks for having me guys.

[00:01:03] GC: Absolutely, we’re happy to have you here. Let’s go through the members of the Money Mastermind Show. We have Miranda Marquit of Planting Money Seeds, Peter Anderson of Bible Money Matters, Tom Drake of the Canadian Finance Blog, Kyle Prevost of Youngandthrifty.ca, he’s not with us tonight, and I am Glen Craig of Free From Broke.

Before we start, as always, if you are watching us live, head over to our event page and there is a question app and if you have any questions about minimalism, drop them there because we’d love to hear them. Now, Cait, you seem to have a lot of experience with minimalism? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:01:45] CF: That’s a big question. [Laughter]

[00:01:47] GC: Yeah I know, we’re jumping right in there. How about this? Let’s break it down a little bit. What do you consider minimalism to be? What does that mean to you?

[00:01:56] CF: Yeah, so my definition, everyone is a little different. I think it’s definitely a buzz word right now and I think when most people, just based on conversations I’ve had with people — most people hear the word minimalist and they automatically assume you live with a hundred things and you have nothing more than a hundred things in your home. Or there are stories where people have, like they live out of one suitcase or out of one back and they have no belongings other than what fits in that.

That is not how I would define minimalism. My definition would be that everything you do have adds value to your life. You actually genuinely get a use out of it or it brings you some amount of joy or pleasure. Just not having clutter. If you can look around your house and everything you have is something that you use, you value, you really enjoy for some reason that is my definition of being a .

[00:02:57] MM: All you need to be minimalist is a sword on the wall right? That’s all you need?

[00:03:01] CF: Oh yeah, if it adds value to your life, that’s all you need!

[00:03:05] TD: That’s home security. [Laughs]

[00:03:08] GC: You can get anything you want with a good sword. [Laughter] I always like to bring it back to economic terms. It sounds like what you’re saying is as long as everything that you have brings really utility to what you’re doing, you’re getting it’s fully utility out of it.

[00:03:25] CF: Yeah, that’s a good word for it, I haven’t thought of it that way before.

[00:03:29] GC: You’re not talking about like is it David Throw where you’re going into the forest and building your own home and then living off the land basically?

[00:03:36] CF: No.

[00:03:37] GC: Not quite that far?

[00:03:39] CF: No, I will say, this whole experience had me become much more resourceful though. So one of the things I’ve experienced in the last year or so is — because I’m not able to, this is sort off a side topic, but with the shopping ban also, because I’m not able to buy a lot of things, I’ve become a lot more resourceful in making things, fixing things, growing some of my own food, stuff like that. But no, I’m not living in the forest, off the land quite yet.

[00:04:09] GC: We’ll get to that shopping ban in a sec. I do want to add, when you tell yourself you’re not going to immediately go and buy or hire somebody to fix things because when you own a home, you’re either becoming a fix it person and/or you’re becoming a person that has a lot of people on a short list to call when there’s a problem and there’s always going to be a problem.

But it does make you more resourceful and you really have to figure things out. And a lot of things, you find, aren’t that hard to figure out. And when you do fix things on your own, you realize, “Wow, I did that for like 10 bucks but if I hired somebody it would have been like 80 bucks.”

[00:04:48] CF: Yup, and one of the things I experience with it was all the women in my family, like when I grew up, my mom and my aunt were both seamstresses and they owned a fabric store where they made clothes, sold the clothes that they made. My mom used to sew like elaborate Halloween costumes for me and up until the five, six months ago, I didn’t even know how to stitch a button on to a shirt.

I don’t know, in my head I had made it seem like it was going to get bigger deal than it was and then I finally just asked, like I had a pair of pants that had a rip in them, and I finally just asked for a quick sewing once and now I’ve fixed a bunch of clothes. So it’s just stuff like that. That’s free right? Other than the thread, that’s free.

[00:05:30] GC: It’s funny fear of technology almost. Younger generations obviously, you think about the fear of technology, it’s older people who maybe don’t know how to use spreadsheets or the Internet and they grow a fear of technology.

They can’t figure out the time on their VCR, if anybody still has one of those. It kind of goes both ways right? The younger generation, they don’t have the technological knowhow to do simple things like fix things, like fix a boiler in the basement or and oil change on the car or things like that. And it’s the same technology and it’s almost the same fear to jump into it. It’s just interesting how it goes both ways.

[00:06:09] CF: Yeah, it’s fear and I also think it’s just convenience. Like we’ve grown up in this time where everything is super convenient, we can go buy anything that we need at a store that’s five minutes away and you know the pants that were ripped, I might have just thrown them out eventually and just bought a new pair but now that I fixed them, I’ll probably get another year out of them.

So I think a lot of it is convenience, I think people are really happy to pay for something that can be done quickly.

[00:06:37] GC: In some places I think it does make sense to just buy something. Some things that cost comes down so much it just does makes sense but a lot of times you really could save a lot. I’m sorry, Peter go ahead.

[00:06:46] PA: I was going to say, I think a lot of it has to do in some respects in kind of a shift in culture. Just a sense of a lot more consumerism these days. If you look at magazines back in the 50’s and 60’s, a lot of the ads in these magazines were for household goods and lower end products. But if you look at those same exact magazines today, all the ads in these magazines are for luxury items, vacations, high end, high dollar things. We buy things, we replace things if they get broken, we don’t try to fix things. So it’s just a whole sale shift in culture I think.

[00:07:21] MM: I was going to say, my mom sews as well and we just went to the fabric store not too long ago to buy some fabric for my son who is really into sewing, he sews better than I do, but yeah he’s really into it. And one thing I noticed is that it costs more now to buy fabric at the fabric store than it does to just go and buy a cheap shirt from the store.

Because like what Peter was talking about, because prices have gone down so much in the last few years that it does, it cost more to go buy a couple of yards of fabric than it does to just go down to like Walmart or Target or something and get a cheap T shirt.

So yeah, the pyjama shirt my son sewed for himself and he’s going to wear it to bed for pajamas cost more than probably half the shirts in his closet because it has come down so much. That’s one of the things too that I think goes into play as well. It’s really cool that you have the skill and you can sew a whole outfit but it’s not cost efficient.

Like what you were saying, it is cost efficient to repair what you’ve already bought and I think you kind of have to weigh that as well.

[00:08:31] CF: Another thing, it’s sort of a side ramp while on the topic of sowing is it’s incredible to know how much fabric people keep in their homes and they never sow it. It’s unreal right? I can’t even tell you how many comments I’ve gotten on my blog about that, seeing people — I’m going to go through my stack of fabric and I don’t know, I wish there was a way it won’t be just recycle it between each other and just share it.

[00:08:56] MM: My mom has a like closet that is like full of this cubbies that just have fabric in them.

[00:09:01] CF: Yup my mom too.

[00:09:03] MM: Yeah. Like you could piece together four good quilts with all of that.

[00:09:09] PA: I think a lot of us have that maybe it’s not fabric but for me maybe it’s networking equipment, I have several bins full of old networking equipment and cables and wires for technology I don’t even use anymore. And its like, “Well maybe I’ll need it someday or I don’t want to throw it out because I’m sure there will be that one day where I need that one cord.”

A lot of our clutter, it almost seems like we hold on to it because we think maybe I’ll need it someday.

[00:09:36] CF: Yeah. The Minimalist — minimalist.com — those guys have a great post about that, it’s called “What If Items” or something like that. But their rule is, if you can get it again within 20 minutes of your home and for less than $20, get rid of it. That’s maybe not the most effective thing but think of it, if you’re holding on to all of those cords, you can probably go to a store one day and buy it for $6 if you really needed it.

So it’s just like how much clutter you’re willing to hold on to versus could you replace it for like six bucks?

[00:10:09] MM: I think that brings up an interesting point in minimalism. Minimalism isn’t always just about being frugal, there’s a difference. Sometimes minimalism is about just getting rid of the clutter and then being willing to go out there and spend that money later if you need to.

[00:10:28] CF: Yeah, I mean well there’s two things. One is, a lot of minimalist are still pretty happy to pay for a good quality things and that doesn’t just mean going and buying designer stuff. Designer things are not always great. But to buy a nicely made, well-made pair of pants versus a $20 cheap pair of jeans that are going to fall apart in six months or something like that. Yeah, it’s definitely appreciating every single item that you’re buying.

I actually experienced that during the shopping ban where I wasn’t supposed to buy any new clothes for a year but then I only had one pair of jeans and it got a huge rip and there was no way to fix it. Miranda will know, it was in the inner thigh, there’s literally no way to fix that right? You cannot fix that.

So I had to go buy a new pair of jeans and I’m stupid and I went and bought a pair for $20 and for the first three months of wearing them, I hated them because they were crunchy and uncomfortable and I’m so mad at myself that I wasted — because I’m only allowed to buy the one freaking pair. And I’m so mad that I wasted that one purchase on something for 20 bucks. If I had spent like $50 or so, I probably could have gotten a way better more comfortable pair.

[00:11:39] GC: If you weren’t in a shopping ban let’s say, you would be tempted to go, you know what? I’m just going to eat this and buy another pair and maybe that $50 pair. Now you spent $80 instead of spending the $50 in the first place. Yeah, there’s that whole aspect of you get what you pay for too, which I think of people don’t quite understand. They think that maybe if they’re getting an item cheaper that they’re saving money and sometimes they are but that quality pays off over time too.

[00:12:03] CF: Yup. yup.

[00:12:05] GC: Sometimes it’s worth it. It goes maybe back to that utility too. If you know you’re going to use something and it’s going to be useful to you and you’re going to need it, it might be worth paying for a higher quality. Not necessarily for a higher name like you said or a name brand, but for the quality knowing that it will last.

And sometimes that’s even just having a brand that maybe backs it up with a warrantee you know? Like you buy something from LL Bean, something happens to it, you mail it back to them and say, “I don’t like it, it’s ripped,” whatever and they’ll give you an instant refund. It’s not going to be as cheap as the GAP, let’s say, but if anything happens you got that backup.

[00:12:38] CF: Yeah, and I actually did it. It was hard for me because I’m very in the past I was never someone who would spend a lot of money on anything. But a year and a half ago, so it was before the shopping ban, I was, I’d carry the same purse for like four years and it was just ripped and awful. And I was literally walking down the street in Toronto, I had everything in, I had my laptop, my wallet, just everything. And the strap, it was leather, and the strap just literally snapped and my stuff fell all over the street.

And so I had to go out that day and I looked at a bunch of stuff and I eventually decided on one that was way more than I would normally spend but it’s a year and a half or two and a half years, I can’t remember when I bought it. It looks brand new. It doesn’t even look like it’s been touched. So I’m like, “It was worth the money,” it’s so basic, it’s not like it’s fancy or anything but it was worth the money.

[00:13:30] GC: Let’s go back to that. You mentioned this ban a few times now. My understanding is you’re in the second year of a shopping ban? If you could tell us a little bit about that and why?

[00:13:42] CF: Yeah.

[00:13:43] MM: Why? Please tell us why?

[00:13:50] GC: Cause you’re really dragging down the economy. I’ve got stocks that are riding on you and you’re really not helping us. [Laughter]

[00:13:55] CF: Okay. Well you guys will appreciate this, we’re finance bloggers so I became debt free a little over two years ago and throughout the entire time that I was paying off my debt, I would share my monthly budgets on my site. And when I was paying off debt, there were months where I was putting upwards of 55% of my income towards debt repayment. That wasn’t really sustainable, I actually wasn’t even earning that much. When I look back at those budgets, I’m kind of blown away that I was able to do that.

But I was allocating so much money towards debt repayment and also during that time when I look back, I feel like I was sort of living in a shopping ban world back then. Because I just wasn’t letting myself spend money on anything and I think as soon as I was debt free, I just kind of started spending all my money again. And I never got back into debt but yeah, it was going out, every time friends wanted to out for dinner or something, I started going out more often and just little things like that. Little luxury and little things that I wasn’t letting myself buy, like a candle or more books again or something. I was just picking it up.

And so it took a while for me to notice this but I used to post my budget, my planned budget at the beginning of the month and I would always aim to save 20% of my income. And then at the end of every single month I would debt to it and I would have saved maybe 8%, 12%. I think it took a year for me to finally hit the 20%. And I would feel so bad like I would be so mad at myself and feel so guilty every single time and then finally just something kind of clicked and I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere with my savings goals because I was just letting it be okay that I was spending all my other money.

I realized it because I had this great conversation with my sister who was like 19 or 20 at that time and she said to me, “You know, I’m saving 30% of my income so I can do whatever I want with the rest.” And I was like, “Okay, but she lives at home and is a university student.”

I’m like, “Do you really need all the rest of your income or could you be saving more?” And as soon as I said it to her, because I love her and I care about here, it flipped and I was like, “Woah, why have I not been telling myself that same advice?”

And so there were kind of two things, the shopping ban came from the fact that I realized I just wanted to try to live on less and also because I was able to look around my apartment and see I hadn’t hit any of my savings goals and yet I have all of these new little things in my place. And I didn’t need anything more. Like when I look around my home, I have everything I could possibly need. So I just decided no shopping for a year, I sort of joked with a friend that I needed new blogging material when I started it. But truthfully I knew, I didn’t need anything more.

So that’s where it started, that was July of last year.

[00:16:58] GC: Now you’re continuing that ban again for another year?

[00:17:00] CF: Yeah, so the first year was really successful. Things I wasn’t allowed was like clothes, books, anything for my home unless I ran out of toiletries that I actually needed, soap, whatever, shampoo. Other than that — oh and I was not allowed to get take out coffee. Take out coffee was a big one for me because that was probably my one vice.

I used to live in Toronto and in Vancouver, and I shouldn’t blame it on city lifestyle, but living in the city there is just like this different weird pressure where you just kind of automatically fit into this life where everyone goes to Starbucks twice a day and that’s just what you do.

[00:17:42] GC: When it’s a stone’s throw away too.

[00:17:45] CF: Yup, they’re literally everywhere right?

[00:17:49] MM: We even have them here in Idaho Falls. When I moved down to Idaho Falls, they didn’t have them. Now there’s like two or three and I don’t know who is drinking it or why they need them, but here they are.

[00:18:00] TD: They knew you were coming.

[00:18:02] MM: Yeah.

[00:18:05] CF: I wasn’t allowed take out coffee that was also included. The first year was really successful. I kind of changed some bad habits like I stopped drinking take out coffee, which was great. I stopped buying books, which was a huge one for me because by the time I started the shopping ban, I had probably 50 or 60 books that I owned but I’d never even read.

So that was really successful. And in the last month or so of the ban of the first year, I just realized that it was almost too easy, I wanted to try again. But the biggest reason I’m doing it a second year is because this time I want to track every single thing that I do buy. And so it might sound silly but I’m writing down one bottle of toothpaste, a pack of razors, whatever.

Because at the end of the year I want to show how much a person, and probably like a female, we buy makeup, whatever. But like how much maybe the average female consumer might actually need to buy to get through a year. So in my eyes, it’s sort of an experiment for everyone, I’ll just very curious to see what the results are at the end.

[00:19:10] GC: To make it clear, what were you allowing yourself to buy? So you’re not talking about like, “I had to make my own toilet paper, we would figure out ways to make soap.”

[00:19:20] CF: No.

[00:19:20] GC: “I was crushing plants to make new makeup.”

[00:19:24] CF: No, obviously I’m not making my own toilet paper. [Laughter]

[00:19:32] GC: There are people out there, I write articles about that, and I’m not saying they’re wrong, but you know…

[00:19:37] CF: We should have that person on the show. [Laughter] No I’m not doing that, but basic toiletries. So yeah I’m still buying soap, it was weird though. Like partway through the year I realized, I did want to attempt to make some of my own things. Now, actually, I wash my hair — it will sound weird at first — I wash my hair just with baking soda and then do an apple cider vinegar rinse, I don’t buy shampoo or conditioner right now. It’s sort of an experiment. I just started it but it’s been going well so far.

So yes, I am in some ways attempting some of that stuff which at the beginning I never thought I’d do. I wrote in one of the post, “I’ll never be someone who makes their own products or anything like that.” And about six or seven months into I’m like, “Why wouldn’t I try that?” so I don’t know, I think this will be interesting. I’m still buying regular soap and stuff like that though but we’ll see.

[00:20:34] GC: So where do you draw the line on like what you can buy? Even food shopping is something where you can run the gambit right there. You could say, “I’m just going to buy some basic organic ingredients and make everything myself,” or you could go crazy and buy pints of Ben & Jerry’s and you’re like, “Well, is that minimalist or not? I mean I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.” Well that’s, you know, 5 bucks a pint!

[00:20:56] CF: I wouldn’t say food is ever in it. And even the shopping ban, it wasn’t just a money thing, it was more of just a consumer thing. I wanted to be a more conscious consumer and just pay more attention to why I was buying things. So if I needed Ice cream, or if I really wanted it, that’s okay.

I will say, I don’t really buy a lot of processed foods at the store other than maybe like a loaf of bread. I shop the perimeter, which is pretty commonly talked about in personal finance. I just hit produce, dairy, meat, that’s about it. Maybe grab rice or some stuff in bulk, that’s about it.

[00:21:37] GC: Would you say that was normally what you did or more?

[00:21:40] CF: Yeah, that’s what I was like for a long time, for years I was a vegetarian, so it was just easier. And then I went back to eating a little bit of meat. So yeah, no it’s been like that for a long time.

[00:21:52] MM: What about eating out? That’s one of the things that I wanted to ask about because I love to go out to eat. I probably eat out like once a week now but six weeks ago, it was every day. But yeah, what do you do about that? You mentioned your friends would ask you to go out and you go out with them all the time. Did you cut back on that? How did you handle that? What happened to your social life?

[00:22:19] CF: Yeah, so I will say, in some ways I don’t think I was every clear on it. So I still eat out at restaurants I just do it less often. The whole point of it wasn’t to — yeah I dunno. It was to like ruin my social life. I didn’t do this with the hope of changing things like that. But I will say that in the last probably three, four months. I’ve noticed I’ve gone out for some meals and at the end of every meal I used to go out for, I would be totally happy to pay whatever the bill was and I wouldn’t even think twice about it.

I have just gotten more — yeah, I’ve had more experiences lately where I’ve been going out for meals and when the bill comes, I genuinely feel like I didn’t get what I paid for. And I don’t know if it’s because of the dollar amount or what, I’ve had a great time with my friends so it’s that, but I don’t know, I think I just am at a point where I would rather have a friend over and cook a meal with them than go out.

Well maybe it’s also, I’m sort of thinking here, maybe it’s sort of the meals that I’m going out for. If it’s like breakfast or something, I can make a really good breakfast at home. So I’d kind of have more fun if I had friend over, made eggs benny or bacon or whatever for them than going out and spending like $30 on brunch somewhere. It’s crazy. I dunno? So I still go out but I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately and I’ve been going out a lot less.

[00:23:49] TD: That’s kind of my restaurant rule too. If I’m going to pay someone, it’s got to be something I can’t make myself. I have the same kind of regrets when I see the bill, I almost think, “Well gee, this could have bought like five meals of groceries.”

[00:24:08]CF: No, it’s true though. It was just weird, I’ve never ever had that before and then the first time I had it was back in May and I went out and I had a great time. I was with a girlfriend, we sat there for like two hours, but when the bill came it was $30 I’m like, “I had a dinner and an ice tea, that was not $30 worth of food”.

I don’t know, and I sort of have that realization finally with takeout coffee. It took a long time for me to also not miss take out coffee, because it just came up here and there right? As we’ve said, Starbucks is literally everywhere until you’d see it all the time, you’re reminded of all the time. But then there was a day where it just came and I was like, “I don’t want to spend $5 on that, I make really good coffee at home.”

[00:24:52] GC: It’s a funny thing. We’ve discovered that too where if you make a lot of your own meals and you’re decent at it, you realize that the quality of the food that you get at a lot of places — maybe I’m just eating out at the wrong places. The quality of the food that you get isn’t really that much more because a lot of the food kind of caters to the masses and tends to be a higher fat content, a higher salt content, a higher sugar content. Right? So you eat the food and then you just don’t necessarily even feel as good from eating the food.

Maybe it taste great as you eat it because it has all this ingredients that the body just wants to eat a lot of. But we find that it’s like, “You know what? The salad that we spent 12 bucks here is not even half as good as what we could do at home.”

[00:25:37] CF: That you could have made for like four or five.

[00:25:39] GC: Right, if that much even.

[00:25:41] MM: Or less.

[00:25:43] GC: Like the omelet that we got there was this greasy thing, that was okay but yeah, we could have done better at home.

[00:25:49] CF: Yeah.

[00:25:51] GC: Now sometimes maybe that just means that you end up going to more expensive places.

[00:25:56] MM: That’s my solution to those kind of problems.

[00:25:59] GC: But you know, it goes back to the earlier comments about really enjoying and what are you getting out of it. We’re a little more apt to go to a nicer restaurant and really try something out there we know that we’re going to enjoy the food. It’s really going to be more of an event than using it sort of an easy way out.

Sometimes you got to do that too, especially if you have kids, when the army’s hungry, you feed them. But you find that you could tend to do better at home and it ends up being less too, money wise.

[00:26:35] CF: The other thing too that made me think of is one think I’ve noticed with restaurants is that I’ve been more a lot more inclined to try new ones rather than just going to old favorites. I think that’s an experience thing, which I’ll say is another minimalist thing. People who define themselves as minimalist are often very happy to pay for experiences. Travel is usually at the top of that but I don’t know, but I dunno, there’s something like going to a new restaurant, it’s a different experience than the one you’re used to. So it may not work out but at least you tried.

[00:27:04] GC: It certainly seems like minimalism is, if it’s not something that’s already been part of your lifestyle, it’s certainly something that pushes you out of the box a little bit.

[00:27:14] CF: Oh yeah. yeah.

[00:27:18] PA: It almost seems like the minimalism lifestyle…

[00:27:22] GC: See, it happened to me too.

[00:27:24] PA: Yeah, it’s a hard word to say. It became also more about appreciating the things that you do have, appreciating the experiences that you’re having and it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. There’s a book called The High Price of Materialism by Tim Caster that talks about how people that have a central focus on financial success and material things in their lives tend to be more distressed. They have more depression and more problems adjusting the life and have low well-being. Just that focus on having things and having a lot of things or whatever, in some ways can kind of sap your happiness and take over your life, give you less freedom.

[00:28:07] CF: I’m actually really glad you said that just because like two things; one I relate to that like exactly. When I look back at how I went into debt years ago, it was because I was really unhappy with where I was at in life. And so I bought everything brand new, I filled my apartment with brand new furniture, and everything matched. I just wanted the newest and best of everything, I bought a brand new car, financed it. And I was still miserable.

And then the weirdest effect I think of getting rid of all my stuff is that I feel more like myself than I ever have. It was about six or seven months into the whole journey before I realized, I think I know myself better right now than I ever have and I’m very comfortable with who I am and just like who I am and I really like my life and my lifestyle right now. It’s because I’m not pursuing anything more, I’m just living.

[00:29:03] GC: I’m going to dare to say this but it always comes up where people ask their favorite personal finance book and there’s certainly a lot that are favorites but I don’t see this often listed but I think Fight Club pretty much nails it.

[00:29:21] MM: [Laughs] That’s fantastic.

[00:29:22] CF: Say why though, because I’ve heard that.

[00:29:25] GC: Because of the whole minimalism aspect and when you were just talking about how you went into debt and you were buying all new furniture and everything, and stuff like that. I couldn’t help but think of the character in the movie where he’s got the perfect apartment, he’s got all the perfect furniture and everything is all setup and his life is empty.

I think that’s the consumerism attitude that a lot of us have where we think we have to have this and the other thing and it may be fills a space of sorts but it’s not there for the right reasons maybe.

[00:29:57] CF: No.

[00:29:59] PA: I think at times too, it’s kind of trying to fill a hole or something in our lives with these things. But to a certain degree, I think consumerism was like that but minimalism can be taken to the extreme as well where it almost becomes this idol in their lives as well. “I can’t have more than three pairs of jeans and if I do, I’m a failure in life,” and that type of thing.

It’s kind of when that, your focus becomes on this thing, either accumulating a lot of things or your folks becomes accumulating — making sure you don’t accumulate too much. A focus can become skewed either way I think in some respects.

[00:30:38]CF: Yup, in a weird way, I’m glad you brought that one up too because I got a really nasty comment today because I wrote just something quickly on my blog today saying I was going to just go through some boxes that I had — I just moved recently and go through some boxes and try to get rid of some more stuff.

It was pretty nasty but one of the things that they said in the comment was exactly that, just kind of like, “Well how few things can you own and you’re just becoming obsessed with it?’ My definition, because I can see that I’ve seen it with other people. My definition is just like, if I feel like I have clutter, then I don’t want it. To clutter to me is like if I’m organizing something or spending time on my evenings or weekends cleaning stuff that I don’t even use, that’s clutter, just get rid of it. But I’m not obsessed with like, I can only own one bottle of shampoo and one razor and stuff like that.

[00:31:40]GC: Clutter is a funny thing, it just seems to grow in itself and people question that as a financial thing to look at. But that clutter takes up space and that space costs money. How many times do you move to a new house because you think you need more space, “I need more closet space, I need a bigger garage, I need a bigger attic, bigger basement.” And then you just fill that up with more stuff and, “Now I need a bigger one.”

And we had a moving episode recently and you move and you find you have boxes of stuff that you never even like… you’re just moving them, you don’t really pull them out of the box, you got nowhere to put it either, you don’t really have no use for them. I’m not talking about like really sentimental keepsakes. I’m talking about things that you just, why am I moving this from one house to another?

[00:32:29] CF: Like Peter’s box of cables.

[00:32:35] PA: Yes exactly. I believe you just got a post on your site about this, about living out boxes and height, half the boxes when you moved didn’t even get opened up again.

[00:32:43] CF: Yeah, that’s the one that just went up today that I was mentioning. Literally everything I have that I use every day is out. And it’s just whatever is in my bedroom like clothes and then a bathroom toiletries, towels. Obviously my kitchen, I use a lot of stuff in my kitchen, and my computer. That’s what I use. And yet I have these boxes right now that have extra blankets I think. I know some stuff is like tools, I just gotten into pulling them out yet, I’m not going to get rid of my tools.

So I know that there are some things I’m going to keep but I can’t really remember everything that’s in them. I have eight boxes right now, that’s all I moved with which is still kind of cool. I moved with eight small boxes, it’s like 12 cubic feet, all my stuff fits into that. But I don’t know what half of it is right now. So that’s what I’m going to do this month is go through them and try to figure that out.

[00:33:37]GC: Another interesting thing. There’s a lot of other people who become minimalist that you wouldn’t necessarily associate in that. Like you have Mark Zuckerberg who always wear the same outfit everyday right? I think President Obama only has like a handful suits that he’ll ever wear and that type of thing. And the reason behind that is, they’re not trying to save money, Zuckerberg doesn’t need to save any money right? But it saves brain space and head space. You’re not thinking about what to do with the stuff, you’re not thinking about all these different combinations that you need to do.

[00:34:14] CF: Yeah, it’s called decision fatigue.

[00:34:16] GC: You see I couldn’t even think of that because I have so much stuff going on.

[00:34:19] CF: You’re trying to pick out which of your 47 T shirts you’re going to wear tomorrow.

[00:34:26] GC: Right, right. And I found, overtime like I would rather have the three or four T shirts that I know that no matter what I’m going to hit, I don’t feel like I have to say “but what if” than have 30. And I’m not saying I’m at that floor at all because I need to clear out my closets just having this conversation. But it does feel better when you know you have one item that you love and you know it works and you just stick with it.

[00:34:53] CF: Yup. Some people, I think I own — the last time I counted I think I own 38 pieces of clothing, but I only own one pair of jeans, I only own one pair of workout Capri’s, one pair of workout pants and I pretty much wear — like I do, I wear the jeans every single day, that’s all I wear. And I have one hoodie, maybe like five T shirts but I probably wear two and what was really weird is that I’ve always been that way.

When I look back, even at who I was in high school, I was always like that. Clothes were never a huge thing for me. Somehow I accumulated stuff but it would be like I had a dress for one event and I just held on to it for six years after. I’ve always been that way. It was more kind of fun with doing this whole challenge for me to realize I was always like that. I tackled clothes first because the other part of this obviously is like, in the past year I’ve gotten rid of 70% of my belongings and clothes were the first thing I tackled and it was so easy because I could easily look at it and be like, “Yeah I actually only wear this probably 15, 20 things regularly. Everything else can go.”

But o, its decision fatigue and it comes with everything. Like the wearing one thing, I eat a lot of the same meals all the time, not every day but I’ll meal plan and then eat that one thing for lunch all week. If I make something for dinner on Monday it’s usually left overs for Tuesday, Wednesday as well because you don’t have to think about it. It also helps, I mean I work for myself now and when you’re at home and you’re busy and you just can’t think about that stuff that can’t be bothered. It just helps so much, you don’t have to think about what you’re going to it if it’s just there and it’s ready.

[00:36:50] GC: And it takes so much more work too. I mean I don’t if this is silly or not, but for sox, I like to always have the same sox. Because I don’t have the time or the energy to match socks. If all my socks weren’t the same brand, it drives me bonkers. I can’t have one that’s longer. I used to have that, work socks I would have different patterns and whatever and then after a while you’ll be like, “I’m spending an hour doing laundry here trying to match these things and just give me black and brown and that’s it.” I know that they fade and I know that it doesn’t take me more than three seconds to find a pair. It’s just because a lot of work.

[00:37:31] MM: Gavin and I have the same sized feet right now so we buy man socks that fit us both and we’re both wearing the same black socks every day and we don’t have to sort through socks or anything, they’re just in a drawer that we all have at, that we both have access. They don’t last very long, but yeah! [Laughter]

[00:37:56] GC: I think if we get to guess who would be like the one person doing the secret crazy minimalism, it wouldn’t have been you Miranda.

[00:38:05] MM: I wouldn’t call myself — I got rid of 75% of my stuff when I moved to Pennsylvania and we didn’t replace a lot of it. And then when I moved back here to Idaho, a lot of the stuff got left and we’ve moved into this house and there are just empty rooms. Everything in this room is in this corner, this is like a third of the room. Two thirds of the room is empty.

Everything in this room is what you see right now and it’s all crammed into this one corner. We did buy a few things so that people can sit down in our front room when they come to visit.

[00:38:55] CF: That’s a necessity.

[00:38:57] MM: And we bought tables so that we can sit down and eat our food but. We bought a couch for down stairs but my whole thing and even buying the washer and dryer, I mean everything, all of it together, I manage to keep it under way within my budget. It was great.

[00:39:16] PA: There’s nothing to make you want to be a minimalist more than moving. When we moved two years ago, we got rid of a lot of stuff. Ot wasn’t 70% of our stuff that’s for sure but boxes, upon boxes, upon boxes of stuff to Good Will. Stuff that we spent a lot of money on I’m sure, and in the end, what we do? We just drop it off at a Good Will store.

[00:39:39] MM: Yeah, that’s what I did on my way out of West Chester Pennsylvania. “I do not have enough room in my car for this pile of stuff, because we’re going to part way through the trip we were picking up a cousin of mine. This seat needs to be free so everything in this seat, we’re dropping off at the Good Will on the way,” and we’d already made two trips to the Good Will. And I’m like, “And everything in this seat is just getting dumped off at the Good Will on the way out of town.”

[00:40:05] TD: Smart people like you guys got rid of everything before moving. When I moved into my house six years ago, I moved everything. I think I’m an ex-hoarder but I still have to get rid of the stuff. Like I said, I don’t buy it, I’m not accumulating anymore. But like Cait said, she moved with eight boxes, I probably have eight boxes that are unpacked for six years now sitting in my garage. I’ve got more unused stuff than stuff that you actually use. My next stage is actually getting rid of it but at least I have stopped accumulating it. I caught on that far. [Laughter]

[00:40:42] PA: Step one is down, yeah.

[00:40:46] TD: Just stop yeah.

[00:40:52] PA: Step on of the 12 steps.

[00:40:52] GC: I’m with you Tom. I kind of realize like how crazy you can get but I’ve still to go through and, like Peter, get rid of all the cables that I no longer need.

[00:40:59] PA: I still have them, I haven’t gotten rid of it yet.

[00:41:02] GC: I have got, if only I could show you if that camera and that wasn’t attached to the computer, it’s really kind of ridiculous, I’ve got boxes for things and it’s just dumb.

[00:41:12] TD: I have a closet full of computer parts. I probably have dial up modem.

[00:41:18] PA: You might need it Tom, you might need it someday.

[00:41:20] GC: I’m sure you’re not ever going to need it.

[00:41:22] MM: Can I just tell you how great it is down in my entertainment center now that there’s no cables. We’re just streaming everything to the PlayStation now so I’m like, “This is simple, this is easy, one cord and then plug in the power source and that’s it.”

Before, we had this like massive tangle of cords and I’m just looking at it going, “Why didn’t I do this years ago? It’s going to save me money each month. It looks nicer and it’s going to save me money each month.”

[00:41:56] PA: This stuff, it almost feels like it has a physical weight on your shoulder sometimes. You accumulate this stuff in your house and you just look around and you just kind of sigh and go boy, I got to get rid of some of this stuff and you never do. And it just weighs on you until you finally do get rid of it and then it’s almost like a palpable sense of relief that it’s gone, “Ugh, finally.”

[00:42:16] MM: Get rid of your stuff Tom, get rid of your stuff. Free yourself.

[00:42:20] TD: We have to come clean and take a bunch of pictures or something before I actually get rid of it just so I can see how much of a transformation I could have some day.

[00:42:31] CF: That’s a picture I regret not taking, I filled my car from the floor of my front passenger seat all the way to every inch of my back seat and trunk two and a half times and I never took a picture of it and I regret that because I dropped it all off like at different Good Wills and books at the library and all kinds of places. I wish I had taken a picture of it.

But it’s interesting talking, like Peter when you said the “weight” of stuff because that’s what most people worry about with getting rid of things is every time you look at something, if you feel like, “Oh I should tackle that project soon or I want to read that book one day.” All that stuff, well people just say it causes a lot of mental clutter too.

And when you look at certain areas of your home and if those are all of your thoughts, it’s negative. You don’t really realize it’s negative but over time it becomes really negative energy because you keep looking at it and feeling bad and guilty that you didn’t actually ever use it or read it yet. The minute you just kind of let it go, “It sucks I spent money on it, it just sucks but new me, me today, I don’t even want to have half of this stuff,” so you just, you got to let it go.

[00:43:48] GC: Some costs. It’s crazy, we were talking about clutter and we’ve really been talking about physical clutter but here I am, I’ve got a browser up and it must have like 15 different tabs.

[00:44:03] MM: Close the tabs, just close them.

[00:44:05] CF: Just get rid of them.

[00:44:06] GC: Only recently because I had used my computer for another project where other people would see my computer where I actually cleared everything off the desktop and put it into folders and filed them away. It was just like Peter with the cables. I might need to have access to that, I might need to remember it. And it’s like, you get rid of it and you go, “Yeah, I’ll never open up that excel spreadsheet again. It feels good to see my desktop screen,” and it’s like the clutter isn’t just in the physical world necessarily. It kind of evades you form all sorts of different places too.

[00:44:42] CF: Tabs used to be a huge issue for me. I once sent a screenshot, I think I should just put it on Twitter and tag a couple of friends because I knew they’d get mad. You couldn’t even see what anything was anymore. I just had so many things opened.

[00:44:54] GC: They shrink down so small.

[00:44:57] CF: You could just see like a little sliver.

[00:44:58] GC: Yeah, that’s when I know if there’s a few.

[00:45:03] CF: I don’t do that anymore. I used to bookmark tons of things because I’d be like, “I want to read that.” I don’t want to read it, if I don’t read it in the next 20 minutes, it’s not happening, just get rid of the bookmarks, just close the tab, you’re done, you can only read so many things in the day. And I read a lot of stuff because I work with J. Money on Rock star finance, I read a lot of stuff every single day. There’s no capacity for more.

[00:45:29] GC: It’s interesting. One thing that’s helped me there is using an app called pocket. So if I’m going to read something, I used to do that, I usually just leave the tab open, “I’ll get to it, I’ll read it later.” I hid it in pocket and close it. If I get to it awesome, if not, I didn’t miss it.

[00:45:46] CF: Yeah.

[00:45:48] GC: But at least I have the state of mind like I’ve sort of reserved it in case I want it and it’s not taking space anywhere at least on my screen.

[00:45:57] CF: But if you open pocket, you would be very overwhelmed.

[00:46:04] PA: Then it’s like you have to read it.

[00:46:07] GC: The way I order it, it’s only like whatever the last one is. So it’s like, “Okay, I did it yesterday, yeah I do wanna read it.” But I hadn’t gone back to those things that were months old to read. I’m not paying for the service necessarily so it’s okay that it sits there better than being a tab that’s opened on my computer.

[00:46:25] CF: Yup, yup.

[00:46:27] GC: I just find that it’s funny that it extends itself into this electronic world. You don’t even have to move but 10 inches and your life can be cluttered.

[00:46:40] MM: My Kindle is starting to get pretty cluttered since I stopped buying books.

[00:46:44] TD: That’s an improvement though, if you got to choose one or the other.

[00:46:49] MM: Oh well yeah, and that’s the thing, I’ve re-bought some of this stuff for the Kindle that I used to have. I had more than 1,000 books at one point.

[00:46:55] GC: I just collect CD’s.

[00:46:57] MM: We had a ton of books and I should have taken a picture of the pile of books we had before we left Utah, because it was — we had the neighbors come and pile through the books and we took a bunch to the thrift shop and to the library, and just everywhere. But yeah, and now I’m down to I think I have 100 books now and I think my son has probably about 200 books now. Poor boy. “No, I need the hard copies,” and I’m like, “No, you really don’t.”

[00:47:35] GC: It’s like, “How many of those are your books?” That’s okay. It sounds like, you know it’s interesting cause I didn’t think that this episode was going to necessarily go into this direction where we were all agreeing on how great it can be to be a minimalist. Because I think it depends on what your definition is. We’ve discovered that it doesn’t mean that it’s making your own whatever all the time.

That can be useful and you could find that it’s a better quality item or whatever, but it doesn’t mean that that’s your entire life. I’m not trying crush corn and make a new gas for the car or something like that. If you could figure that out, that’s great, sign me up.

[00:48:10] CF: I’d be a millionaire.

[00:48:12] GC: Right.

[00:48:13] MM: “I grow my own fuel.”

[00:48:17] GC: We’ve talked about it too in this show and how it’s really just about finding the value in the things that you’re buying. But for the people who are out there, we are bombarded, I don’t want to say our society but certainly, measures of success are built on the things that we buy. Our GDP is built on what we produce and that’s based on what we’re going to buy. When Apple stock goes up it’s because people buy more iPhones. When people stop buying iPhones it goes down and that’s a bad measure. Nobody goes, “Well you know, maybe you made such a great phone, nobody’s buying a new one.”

It’s like, “Oh no, everybody didn’t just drop what they had.” So it’s sort of built in to our everyday lives that we’re supposed to buy and keep buying otherwise we’re not doing our part almost. How do we avoid that, how do we get that around people’s heads that it’s okay to avoid these things? Marketing is setup in such a way, and advertising, that we’re really just sucked into it. How do you get around that?

[00:49:21] CF: I think for me, one of the things, because I read of a bunch of books on kind of why people spend money and I also read a few books on how to market specifically to women, how to market products. One of the things I’ve really taken from it is in general, if you look and pay attention to most ads, not everything, not really cars or like really expensive things but general things.

If you flip through magazines, newspapers, if you paid attention to all the ads for even 20 minutes that run on your TV, most of the way we’re marketed is — what’s the word for it? Its scarcity. We’re shown a product that is going to fix some imaginary problem that we apparently have. And so I think the biggest question for me always is just paying attention to what product it is that you think you want to buy.

It’s totally okay to buy things, me doing the shopping ban, like I said, I still buy toiletries, I still buy things that I need but I’m not going to buy something because it’s been marketed to me because apparently it will make my skin better for this or that or the other reason like. I’ve been using the same thing for 10 years now and it works just fine. And so really just paying attention. We need to buy some things. There’s some pretty cool projects out there, there’s a woman named B. Johnson has a pretty cool project called the zero waste.

[00:50:50] MM: Oh yeah.

[00:50:51] CF: The Zero Waste Home — she has a book and stuff. There’s some pretty interesting stuff in that — that’s like an extreme. But we do, average consumer, yeah, buy things. It’s fine. But just pay attention to the reason why you’re buying it, that’s all it is.

[00:51:11] GC: Yeah.

[00:51:11] CF: The biggest thing for me in general in the last year has been paying attention, every time I feel the need to buy something like really, because I have to, I have to take these extremely long, two year long pauses and ask myself why I want to buy whatever it is. If I don’t have a really good reason for it, why would I ever buy it?

It’s more just, it pays attention, or it makes me pay attention to all the habits that have been built into me over the years. A friend of mine named Anthony, he calls it the twitch. [Inaudible] called Break the Twitch and it’s because we constantly feel this need, it’s like built into us. You can go buy something on Amazon in two seconds and we just do these things automatically without thinking about it. So as soon as you stop yourself, just really ask yourself, “Why do I actually need it right now?”

[00:51:59] GC: Oh but damn it feels so good when that box comes in the mail.

[00:52:02] CF: Do you actually use the product right that minute?

[00:52:07] GC: Depends on what it is.

[00:52:09] MM: I ordered a shower caddy a couple of nights ago because I couldn’t find what I wanted in town so yeah, I’ll use that.

[00:52:15] CF: Okay, well that’s where it…

[00:52:16] MM: It made me happy.

[00:52:17] CF: That’s where it’s a little different in Canada, Tom can vouch for this too. Amazon doesn’t do that for us. You can’t get a lot of home stuff. For us, Amazon, it’s still like ancient, it’s still just like books and movies.

[00:52:29] TD: Books and CD’s.

[00:52:32] GC: I just got an email that Amazon Fresh is opening up, so I could have my groceries by like night time.

[00:52:39] TD: We’re running behind on that too.

[00:52:42] MM: I don’t have no Amazon fresh here in Idaho.

[00:52:44] GC: A whole n’other level of Ben & Jerry’s

[00:52:47] CF: But you’d think Canada’s in like a second world country or something. It’s like we’re so behind on the stuff, we don’t get the same stuff as you guys even on Netflix.

[00:52:55] TD: Yup. [Laughter]

[00:52:57] PA: So sad.

[00:52:58] MM: Although, you know I just did just sign up for blue apron because they do deliver out here.

[00:53:05] GC: Fresh direct type of deal?

[00:53:06] MM: Yeah, except they plan your meals out for you and send you the fresh ingredients. So they’re all fresh and healthy ingredients and then they give you the recipe.

[00:53:15] GC: That’s interesting.

[00:53:17] MM: Miranda hasn’t had to do meal planning for 13 years and I don’t think I’m ready to do that right now.

[00:53:22] GC: That goes back also into the utility and the value. I’m guessing, I’m trying to lead you here that you’re going to actually get these items and use them to what they do.

[00:53:32] MM: Yes, because yeah. It will keep me from having to go to the store and shop for things. I was comparing it and I was like well, this is still less per week than somebody was spending on groceries before. We’ll move on from that but yeah.

[00:53:52] CF: It gets rid of your decision fatigue.

[00:53:54] MM: Yes it does. You know what? Dinner is planned and there’s a recipe right there. Easy.

[00:54:02]GC: It’s interesting that you mentioned advertising. Once you realize that advertising is really out to get some people, you start to feel a little manipulated in what you’re watching because if you’re just watching TV, you don’t always see what the ads are, you watch them but you don’t kind of know, you hear but you don’t listen.

But once you understand what they’re trying to do — I work for an advertising company for a little while so I was able to see a little bit behind the curtains — you watch certain types of shows and then you see that’s the commercials and you don’t even watch the show and you just go, “Oh yeah, they expect women to watch this or you can expect guys to watch this or they expect people who have children to watch this and you’re just like, “Damn, they’re really just aiming for this demographic aren’t they? We were just hammering it in for whatever insecurities or whatever scarcity, whatever is there and they just kind of attack it over and over again.

Sometimes, maybe it’s my own dorkiness, it’s fun to watch a show and just see who they’re actually looking to attack or target let’s say. Maybe that’s a better word.

[00:55:08] CF: No, it’s true. We studied that, my background’s in communications. We studied that in cultural communication. It’s massive, it’s called flow. The way that they map out everything. Every single advertisement that’s on a certain TV show is mapped out, it’s chosen for that show, absolutely.

[00:55:29] MM: And the time slot and everything.

[00:55:30] GC: Right. You watch something during the day, when more women tend to be home and it’s all sorts of different products, “Oh you’re home, you’re supposed to be cleaning the house,” and that’s where it’s going to be, it’s going to be cleaning products during the day.

Because all these shows were owned by P&G that’s why they’re called soap operas. Then you watch something in a different time slot and it’s just a whole different set of items being shown and it’s just very interesting way to look at how things are being shown to you.

It does open up sort of your eyes and you go, “Wait a minute, what are you really doing to me?” Once you see the trick you go, “Oh I see what’s going on.”

[00:56:09] PA: Really what it comes down to is they’re advertising towards your insecurities, the holes that you feel in your life, the different things, different groups of people, they’re selling a lifestyle, they’re selling something like that. Really what it comes down to is you need to at some point in your life be able to sit down and be content with who you are, what you are, know what’s important in your life and then just realize that a lot of these things are not for you. It’s not going to make you happy, it’s not going to fulfil you and all that kind of stuff. And once you get to that point, it’s a lot easier to turn down a lot of these things because you realize it’s just empty spending and it’s not going to fill you up at the end of the day.

[00:56:55] GC: On that note, at the end of all our episodes we tend to do a final word and I think Peter did a great job of summing it up there. Certainly if he wants to add to it, he’s welcome to it but we’ll go around and we’ll give our final word on minimalism. Only because as much fun as this has been, we’ve already been hit about an hour or so.

So tom, what’s your final word on minimalism?

[00:57:18] TD: Well, I’m no expert minimalist as I’ve said, but I definitely aspire to be. I think one thing that was brought up, was the marketing. I found I did a lot less spending once I just stopped kind of looking at ads, I don’t watch any commercials during TV even though they’re kind of hidden in the shows now too but that’s beside the point. But just having less advertising coming at me has made it a little easier to not always need to get the next new thing.

[00:57:49] GC: Good point, how about Miranda? What’s your final word on a minimalist lifestyle?

[00:57:54] MM: Yeah so I’m not a true minimalist either I wouldn’t say but I’m not going on a shopping ban anytime soon. But I do think it goes back to figure out what really matters to you and focus on that kind of stuff. Because there was a time in my life where I would look at piles of things in my house and just be —look at that and say, “Oh my gosh, that’s like a weekend getaway. Oh my gosh, that’s a trip to Europe, oh my gosh.” And those kinds of experiences are things that I value more than having a pile of stuff.

So just getting back to what Cait was saying earlier about, “Well why are you spending the money on this? What’s it really bringing into your life?” And that’s sort of where I’ve kind of gone and just said, “Well, I’d rather be spending my money on experiences. I don’t need to buy all these things.”

And you know what? If having a pile of stuff really makes you happy and you don’t want to leave the house and go do experiences, that’s cool too. But figure out if that’s what’s important to you.

[00:58:57] GC: Peter, did you want anything else to your answer there?

[00:59:00] PA: No, I’ll just pass on mine, I think I covered it there.

[00:59:03] GC: Alright, play or pass, we’ll pass. And Cait, if you’ll close that out for us, your final word on living a minimalist lifestyle?

[00:59:12] CF: I think actually it will just expand off of what Miranda just said. I would say, and I wrote about this actually just this week but something that I do often is I set a timer for two minutes and I write down everything that’s important to me right now and not just minute, people in my life just whatever comes to mind in two minutes and it can just be like a scribbly mess, and I guarantee you can then look at that list and kind of — like I didn’t look at it, kind of compare it to my spending over the last few months, see if it’s kind of matching with what’s important to me right now. It’s not a minimalist thing per se but I think it would be an exercise that could be very eye opening for people. Just to see if they’re spending and what they’re consuming is kind of lining up with what they really value.

[01:00:01] GC: That’s an interesting quick audit of your lifestyle. Very nice. So Cait, thank you so much for coming and joining us here. I think this is a great discussion today and like I said, I wasn’t sure where it was going to go because minimalism versus spending, we tend to be a very pro credit card bunch here too.

[01:00:21] CF: Me too.

[01:00:22] GC: But spending doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s debt either. It’s all in the value of what you’re putting that money towards. For people who are out there that may not know Blonde on a Budget, if you could tell them a little bit about yourself as well as your site?

[01:00:40] CF: Sure, yeah. Blonde on a Budget — Blonde with and “E” — Blondeonabudget.com or .ca. Same for twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. Yeah, I publish every Monday and sometimes more but I publish at least every Monday and usually just share thoughts on how kind of my journey with improving my finances, embracing minimalism, just being more mindful about stuff and just how it’s all affecting life — and I talk about the shopping ban.

[01:01:13] GC: Head on over there, Blondeonabudget.com. That’s B-l-o-n-d-e, m y spelling isn’t always so great so I kind of missed that the first time. Head out there and take a look. Thank you again for joining us and thank you everybody out there for watching and listening and until next week be good with your money.

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