On her 29th birthday, Cait Flanders banned herself from shopping for a whole year.

After two years of aggressively paying off debt, she found herself spending money aimlessly and barely saving anything.

At the end of the year-long shopping ban, Flanders was able to quit her job to focus on her freelance career and write her book, which came out in January 2018.

She decided to extend the ban for another year, and says her life has completely changed







Four years ago, Cait Flanders was shocked to learn that her sister was saving 20% of her income as a full-time college student. Flanders, however, was lucky if she was putting away 5% of her salary each month.

"All of a sudden the wheels started turning," she told INSIDER. "I'm like, why have I been telling myself I can spend 95% of my income? Could I live on less than that?"

Flanders, who was 28 at the time, had recently finished paying off nearly $30,000 of debt, which left her feeling burned out and spending money aimlessly once she was free from debt payments.

"It didn't feel good that I was spending all of my money and that I wasn't moving toward any of my goals," Flanders, said. "Or even at the end of every month, I couldn't even say that I felt good about where all my money was going."

So she made what some might call an extreme decision: she banned herself from shopping for an entire year, starting on her 29th birthday.

After paying off $30,000 of debt in less than two years, Flanders was burned out and started spending all the money she made. Cait Flanders

She wasn't allowed to buy new clothes, books, electronics, furniture, or takeout coffee — for 365 days.

Flanders forbid herself from purchasing anything that she didn't consider essential.

"Unless I was in some kind of situation where I absolutely needed it or had to replace something, I could not buy it," she said.

She did have a list of a few "approved items" she knew she would need to buy that year. For example, she didn't own formal dresses or high heels, but she had five weddings to attend that year. But rather than buy an outfit for every occasion, she decided to buy one outfit and wear it to all five weddings.

These girls. You're going to learn more about them when #theyearofless comes out. For now, I will tell you they are two of my oldest friends in the personal finance community - and they were two of the people who helped me make the transition to self-employment. I'm so happy we could fly from opposite coasts to meet here in Colorado and share another important milestone together. ❤️ A post shared by Cait Flanders (@caitflanders) on Aug 21, 2017 at 6:18am PDT Aug 21, 2017 at 6:18am PDT

Flanders still allowed herself to dine out but wasn't allowed to buy take-out coffee, which proved to be the most difficult thing to quit.

"It's funny, because I've done interviews where people sort of laugh at that," Flanders, now 32, said. "Like, 'Oh was it so hard to not get take-out coffee.'"

"Everyone's habits are different, but for me, a habit was to get take-out coffee either by myself or with friends very often," she said. "So then to have to change a habit that you had and did regularly — that is hard."

A gift from my adventure partner in crime. Hot coffee in the snow never tasted so good. Thanks, girl! xoxo A post shared by Cait Flanders (@caitflanders) on Feb 6, 2017 at 7:34pm PST Feb 6, 2017 at 7:34pm PST

Not buying books was another habit that was hard to break.

"The minute I heard of a book that sounded interesting, my habit was to basically just go on any of the online retailers that had it cheapest, add it to the cart and add something else to get up to the free shipping — because you somehow think you're saving money even though you're spending more," Flanders said.

Because of her nearly weekly book-buying habit, she owned around 55 unread books by the time she started the shopping ban. Between that and the library, she was set when it came to reading material.

Flanders learned she easily gave into impulse purchases and pressure from friends to spend.

In addition to setting limits on what she could buy, Flanders made sure to take inventory of what she already owned. It reminded her that she had "enough," and stopped her from making impulse purchases of random items.

It's been 3 months since I did a massive declutter and purged 47% of my belongings. Is my place still clean and organized? Take a tour on the blog today! A post shared by Cait Flanders (@caitflanders) on Oct 8, 2014 at 7:23am PDT Oct 8, 2014 at 7:23am PDT

"It's so easy to look around your home and forget how much stuff you have," she said. "It might be organized and look nice, but how much stuff do you actually own that you haven't even used?"

Flanders also realized that she was a victim of emotional and pressure spending from friends.

"I didn't really know that I was someone who used so-called 'retail therapy,'" she said. "I went through a break-up that year and really found myself in moments of feeling like life sucks, like what could help me feel better right now? And there were no quick fixes for that."

Girls who paddle. #tofino A post shared by Cait Flanders (@caitflanders) on May 25, 2014 at 7:25pm PDT May 25, 2014 at 7:25pm PDT

Flanders said that although some friends were bad influences on her spending, good friends helped her fight the urge to splurge, and she also held herself accountable by writing about her shopping ban on her blog.

She eventually learned to differentiate between the things she wanted and the things she felt like she should want.

One thing Flanders became aware of during the first year of no shopping is that she made a lot of what she called "aspirational purchases."

"I used to buy things that I just thought a more interesting version of myself might wear or use or do," she said. "But I never used any of those things because the real me didn't want to."

One of the things I'm most proud of this year is the balance I struck between living and working. Truthfully, I did more living, and I will need to do a lot more work in 2017. But my only goal during a "busier" year will be to keep doing whatever it takes to spend as much time out here as possible. 📸 @pascalsaxby A post shared by Cait Flanders (@caitflanders) on Dec 14, 2016 at 9:18am PST Dec 14, 2016 at 9:18am PST

Flanders said this realization helped her begin to understand who she was and accept herself for the first time.

"I just had to let all these ideas of who I thought I should be go," she said. "So I just felt really, really content by the end of the year."

She was so content, in fact, that she decided to write a book about how the ban had changed her life.

Now, Flanders' main financial goals are saving for retirement and continuing to be able to support herself through freelance writing.

She said her extra money goes toward travel — including an upcoming trip to the United Kingdom — with her "beautiful little mountain town" in British Columbia as her home base.

During her shopping ban, Flanders managed to save about $13,300 and quit her full-time job.

Until the end of the first year of the shopping ban, Flanders had been the managing editor at a financial product comparison website.

"I managed to save up so much money — and also did more and more freelance work — that I found myself in the position where being able to quit my job and go freelance full-time became an option," Flanders said.

By the end of the year, she had saved up about $13,300.

"Before that, I was lucky if I had maybe $2,000 in savings," Flanders said. "I was pretty much always living basically paycheck to paycheck."

When the first year of her shopping ban came to an end, there was hardly even a question in Flander's mind that she would keep doing it for another year.

"It was an easy decision to keep moving forward," she said.

The only thing she changed during the second year was that started tracking her spending and keeping count of things like how many tubes of toothpaste or sticks of deodorant she actually used in a year.

"It wasn't for any purpose other than that I was kind of curious as a data point as a consumer — how much stuff do I actually use?" she said. "And now it is just interesting because I know better than to stockpile on basically anything because I actually don't use that much stuff."

Flanders said that everyone should be more mindful when buying things.

"Did you actually use the thing?" she said. "Did you enjoy it? Because buying stuff isn't bad and spending money is not bad... The value, though, is coming from actually using it and being happy with it."

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