You’re not going to believe what my guest today is doing. She is actually on a spending freeze. The idea of actually not spending any money on once and things that I happen to desire throughout the day, whether it’s a coffee or a cab ride…it would be very difficult for me. Cait Flanders is a living, breathing experiment of this and she has been making headlines.

I’ve known Cait for some time, she’s an avid blogger and very active in the personal finance community, she runs the blog Blonde on a Budget. She recently made new headlines with this spending freeze that she was embarking on, which she actually started last year. And so I thought, “You know what? Let’s get her on the show,” because I want to know how this cleanse is going, does it work, can it work, how can we all learn from this and maybe take some of the lessons into our own lives.

A little bit more about Cait Flanders: She’s the creator of the blog Blonde on a Budget which she started in 2010 as a way to document her own journey to get out of debt. After paying off about $30,000 of debt, she decided to adopt a very minimalist lifestyle, she got rid of 75% of her belongings and she is, as I said, currently undergoing a two year shopping ban. She’s become very passionate about helping others create budgets that align with their goals and values while also teaching others to overcome consumerism tendencies. Her story has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Yahoo! Finance, among many others.

Takeaways from our time together:

1. Why she decided to go on the spending cleanse. Why go to this extreme?
2. Her moments of weakness. She’s had some!
3. How you can follow in her footsteps.

If you’d like to learn more about Cait Flanders, visit her website www.blondeonabudget.ca or follow her on Twitter @BlondeOnABudget.

One of my favorite quotes from our interview: “I know you can’t buy happiness at a store.” – Click to Tweet