The Journey Towards Minimalism
How do you deal with “stuff”? You know… the “stuff” that surrounds you… all the time. Do you have boxes of “stuff” that you haven’t looked in for 27 years but simply can’t bring yourself to get rid of? This episode is for you. This week on the Because Money podcast we are joined by the incomparable Cait Flanders as she shares her journey towards minimalism.
This episode is packed with golden tidbits… you might learn how to know when it’s time to purge, or when you should keep stuff, you could learn how to evaluate need, I bet you can even learn how to effectively steal from your kids (for their own good). All you have to do is press play on that video right there, and follow along on the transcript in case the video audio quality leaves you less than impressed.
Cait was an absolute pleasure to talk with, she can be found in a lot of places on the internets. Here is our glorious resource list.
Jackson: Jackson Middleton
Kyle: Kyle Prevost
Sandi: Sandi Martin
Cait: Cait Flanders (blondonabudget.ca)
Kyle: And welcome back to another episode of the Because Money podcast. I’m Kyle Prevost. And as always, I’m joined by Jackson Middleton and Sandi Martin.
Joining us today, we have the incomparable Cait Flanders from blondeonabudget.ca. Cait, amongst other notable features, has paid off $28K in debt and has become the new Canadian minimalism expert after tossing out 75% of her stuff and embarking on a two-year shopping ban. So welcome, Cait.
Cait: Thanks for having me, guys. Incomparable—I like it. [laughs]
Kyle: So my first question is what spurred this whole paying down debt and then was it a gradual slide into minimalism or was it an epiphany? How did that happen?
Cait: Yeah, it’s sort of sort of funny because everyone assumes that I sort of like was maxed out debt and then I obviously started a shopping ban because I was in debt. No, that actually came way after I was debt-free and had absolutely nothing to do with that.
So I was 25, just about to turn 26, and I realized I was maxed out with just over $28K in debt, most of which consumer. Of that, only $4K was school. $15K of it was a car loan. A couple years before that I was basically just someone who always spent more than I made. So before that I’d like rack up my credit cards and I had credit consolidation loan. And then I was stupid and didn’t ever lower the limits on my credit cards, so I just went back to using them. And all of a sudden I was maxed out and I literally had $100 left on my credit limit and $100 in my chequing account, and I had to make that last for six weeks.
I sort of had no other option but to pay off my debt. So I did that in two years, and that was kind of a journey in its own. Then after that is when I realized that while I was paying down debt, I was so aggressive about it, but at the same time I didn’t really ever become a good saver. Like I had no good savings habits. So my first year of being debt-free I would write these budgets where I would say like you know I want to save 20% every month. This is sort of a number of that I thought I can probably do that, because when I was paying off debt, there were months where I was paying sometimes up to 55% of my income towards debt repayment.
I should have been able to save 20%, no problem, but I couldn’t, and I realize like I just kind of like let lifestyle creep in and all of that, and it was just like I was having lots of fun. I realized like I hated it because on my blog I’d write these budgets at the beginning of the month and I would say I’m going to save 20%, but I’d get to the end and “Hey guys, I’ve saved like 5%.”
And I would come up with excuses for it and they weren’t really good. I also hated publishing them. I just felt so stupid and bad that I couldn’t hit 20%. Based on my income it wasn’t that much money, like I should have been able to do it. So a year after becoming debt-free is when I started the shopping ban and got rid of a bunch of my stuff, and so everything went from there.
Kyle: That is sort of an interesting transition. And how drastic was it when you were sort of looking into minimalism? I assume it wasn’t like all at once you just burned half your stuff. Was it like “Oh, I don’t need a little of this and now I don’t need a lot of that” or sort of how did you come to this realization that life could be better for many reasons. Making it simpler, I guess? Is that a fair assessment?
Cait: Yeah, I feel like when I started it, it was sort of because I realized you know I was spending a lot of money just on useless stuff. And it wasn’t even totally useless. You know, I’d be like one of those people like when I went shopping to Walmart you go pick up the usual things, but then you see like other things and you throw them in and there’s $5 here and $10 and $15 here. I’d just look around and see that I had six bottles of lotion or like four bottles of shampoo, or just stuff like that. That’s like a three-year supply of lotion. [laughs] You do not need to buy more once you get to a certain point—you just don’t. So I’m looking at all this stuff being like I just physically don’t need more, but that there’s a lot of stuff.
A couple of years before I had started it, I had actually moved five times in one year, and during that time I didn’t get rid of anything, for some reason. I literally would just pack all my things in these same boxes and move them to the next place, unpack everything, and like three months later pack them all back up. And I kept everything.
So yeah, I didn’t really like know that I was going to kind of have revelations as I was eventually doing this. I really just started it because I realized I had enough. It’s sort of like the debt repayment, once I start something I am pretty aggressive about it. So when you ask, “Did you like burn up half your things?” well actually in a month I got rid of over 40% of my stuff, so I sort of did do it all right away. And yeah, it was aggressive.
Basically, I started in my bedroom and I would empty the closet, the dressers, every single drawer and I would just go through everything on the bed, and I could only put back what I was keeping. And then everything I wasn’t went right into a bag to go away.
Kyle: So how many times have you wished for something that you threw out in the last year, or however long, since you had that sort of a month-long epiphany? How many times have you wanted that 40% of stuff?
Cait: Never. I don’t even know what any of it was.
Kyle: Not even once?
Cait: No.
Kyle: That’s amazing.
Cait: Yeah and I just think that it shows you how much stuff you use or don’t use on a daily or weekly, or even monthly basis, that’s in your home. Like I just don’t remember what any of it was. I literally had boxes in my closet like I just kept moving from place to place, but like I wouldn’t even do anything with whatever was inside of it. And sometimes it’s stuff like your yearbooks or whatever, and I kept those and other things, but no. I was aggressive, but I’ve never missed any of it.
There’s actually a blog, theminimalist.com, and they have a great trick. And I didn’t use it when I was doing this, but now when I talk to other people about it, I always suggest it. Their thought—they call it the 20/20 rule, for those “just in case” items that you’re scared to get rid of. So if you can buy it for $20 or less and within 20 minutes from your home, get rid of it. And it’s not really condoning spending, because we shouldn’t condone people go and spend a lot of money, but I’ve never missed any of them. So I’ve never spend that $20.
Sandi: No, but it’s a good way to give people who are kind of scared of even the word “minimalism” if they’re not going to do it because they’re never going to really let go of something. Giving them sort of an easy rule to follow. You know, from your experience, that you’re not going to miss those things. Then you can give them the confidence to do it, knowing that they probably won’t use that rule anyway. I think that’s really cool.
Cait: Because most of the “just in case” items that I’ve talked to other people about ends up being, “Oh, I have this cord”, like an HDMI cable. Like okay, well you can go to Superstore and get one for $5.
Jackson: I’m going to be honest. Every guy I know, myself included, has that cord box. We have cords from every electronic device we’ve ever owned. We put it in a box and we refuse to throw it out and it gets tucked away in our closet next to our baseball card collection—1991 Donruss baseball cards. Every guy my age has one and we refuse to part with them. I actually did part with mine. I’d just like to say. I’m on a very similar journey towards minimalism and I got rid of a whole bunch of stuff that had incredible meaning to me that I have no idea what it is. But it’s gone and I’m so happy.
Sandi: Do you know what I love most, Cait? Actually, it was a very recent post of yours. I think it was even yesterday. You were talking about how you used to have on your list of things to do every day, “I’m going to clean”. And I’m going to put things away, and it’s not scrubbing or anything, it’s just I’m putting things away. And now you don’t have to have that on your list because everything that you have, you have so few things that are actually useful. Like you just put them in the place that they belong all the time. I love that. I love it so much, I can’t begin to express it.
Cait: Yeah, and that’s just the thing. Like I was saying, like minimalism sort of started as this thing about that stuff, like it had just to do with stuff, and you know I have too much of it and I should get rid of some of it. And then I got rid of 40%, and then over the over the course of a full year I got rid of 75% of my stuff. And the reason I was able to do that because every month I kind of looked around and be like, “I haven’t touched that yet. I haven’t touched that”. So it’s all “stuff” related. And now that it’s all gone—there’s a bunch of stuff—one of the biggest benefits of it has been how much time I get back.
And it’s not just the time of like, “Oh, I don’t clean anymore”. Like you have to clean your bathroom, you have to clean your kitchen. But I don’t have to tidy up, we’ll say. But it’s like there’s so much time and even like mental space that is taken up when you have clutter in your home. Whether it’s just thinking about that you’re going to have to clean that eventually and you feel that constant dread of like you don’t want to but you have to.
And then aside from that, how many things you might hold onto. Like I was really bad for buying books I thought I would read, but I really had no interest in reading them. But I was like well a certain version of Cait should read this book. Or like I want to be kind of person who reads this book. And so I have all of them. And then I look at them and I would just feel bad. And so it removes all of that too. I don’t look at my house anymore and see that camera that I never pick up and feel bad about it. Or that craft or arts project or something, or some DIY project. I don’t look around and see all that stuff because I’m never going to do it.
And so once I finally sort of let go let of all of that, and I’m like “This is who I am. All the rest can go”. I don’t know, it’s frees up so much mental space and physical time that I don’t have to think or worry about something I don’t want to do.
Sandi: So what’s the entry point for people? Because I think we are very convinced, from our perspective of having already done it or having done something like it, or being convinced in our own lives as part of our journey. But if you’re telling somebody about the benefits of what you do and what your life is like, without them having that moment of feeling overwhelm or any of those things, how do you convince somebody that you know needs to be convinced?
Cait: Yeah, there’s a couple things. One is that I usually say start with a room. And I would even go further than that and just say start with the room you actually do spend the most time in. I think we call them like “invisible corners”, which are like the corners where you kind of just shove everything and you know don’t actually touch it ever and don’t actually use whatever you put over there. And you kind of pretend it doesn’t exist, but it does, and every time you see it you kind of get that shuddery feeling.
So start with the room that you spend the most time in and go from there. But the other thing is, basically we have these daily annoyances in our homes without realizing it. So for me, in my last place before I moved, it was that my desk area, like it was always really dark because I had it facing this window. I had a beautiful view in my last place, but it got really dark at night. And so it would always be annoying, going to my desk at night because if I wanted to Skype with anyone I would have to get a light because it was super-dark. It was just this annoying thing.
For other people it could be like you know when you’re in your kitchen and every time you go to do this one thing, it’s not where you think it should be, but you keep putting it back where it doesn’t really make sense. For me, this whole thing started because I couldn’t find my can opener, and it was because I kept putting it in the stupidest spot. I was always annoyed when I needed it. And the whole thing, like that it started where I was like in my kitchen, pulling things out of drawers saying, “Oh my god, I don’t want any of this!” Like it’s all in the wrong spot or I just need to get rid of it.
So start paying attention to little annoyances. It could be super simple stuff like every time you go to reach you a dish you think of going to a different cupboard. So when you do try to fix those little things, see if there’s something in that space that you can get rid of.
Sandi: I’m going to go to my default comment, which is I really love that. [laughs]
Cait: I know I was aggressive in the beginning, but now it is truly like you notice every month kind of looking around, I still get rid of stuff. Not a lot, but at Christmas or in November, I helped my dad get rid of quite a bit of stuff from his basement. And I was still able to like go back to my place and find five things that I didn’t need. Because I’d could look and be like, you know, I’ve been back in Victoria for 5 to 6 months now and I’ve never used this thing, so I don’t need it.
The other thing, if anyone has kids, I’ve heard that is really good and something that people could put into practice for themselves too. So it’s really hard to get kids on-board for getting rid of stuff, like especially young kids. Because you’ve got to think like the things that they own, it’s all they have. Kids are pretty crazy but when they have something that they’re grateful for, they’ll throw out the dog and this table and like they’ll throw out all kinds of weird things usually, but when it comes down to it, like what is in their bedroom is everything they own. And because they didn’t even purchase it, like it was gifted to them. They’re so scared to get rid of it. You can’t say to a kid, “Okay, so let’s rid of all your toys”. They’d be like “What!” [laughs] You can’t do that
One of the things I’ve read many times is when they’re not there, if there’s stuff you know they’ve outgrown…
Sandi: Steal it. [laughs]
Caitlin: [laughs] No, totally. But when they’re not there, grab it and put it in a bag and then just put it in a closet for like 30 days, or even 60. And if they haven’t asked for it in that period of time, then get rid of it. If you’re a little too nervous to get rid of some things, like box them all up for a couple of months. That’s actually one of the things that one of the minimalist said. I think he called it a “vacuum party”, which is kind of funny. [laughs]
But it’s ideal, literally. Once he packaged every single item that he owned—other than probably his toothbrush—and put it in a box, and I think he lived like that for 3 or 4 weeks, and anything he hadn’t used in that 3 or 4 weeks, he got rid of. That’s really aggressive, so people don’t have to do that, but the idea is there. Put something that you don’t think you’re going to use and if you haven’t’ used it in a month, get rid of it.
Kyle: How successful do you think it’s been for you? First of all, how long has it been since that first month?
Cait: That was July 2014, so a year-and-a-half or so.
Kyle: So how successful? There’s sort of two sides to it, right? It’s been very mentally freeing for you, which you mentioned. Financially, how much do you think you can sort of directly or indirectly trace back to this mindset? Are you much more successful in meeting those monthly goals now?
Cait: Yeah, so I’m crazy and at the same time I was doing all this, I you know put myself on this two-year shopping ban. I still buy things, but it has to be something I really need. It has to be something like my car battery is actually dead right now, and my car is like 7 years old and it is somehow still on the original battery. I’ve tried charging it at my dad’s and it’s not going to work. I’m going to need to buy a new car battery. Those are things that you have to buy.
At the same time doing that, I think what I really realized both in getting rid of stuff and then not being able to bring more in, is like what I actually value in life. So people read about it probably a lot on my blog, but especially last year, like I travelled a lot. When I was younger, like when I was in my early 20s, I used to talk about wanting to travel all the time, but I could never seem to make it happen. And now I’m like it’s been quite easy, and it because I’m just not blowing little bits of money everywhere. So I can very easily make travel part of my budget, every single month, whether I’m saving for a trip or going on one, because of that.
I would say I went from saving when I feel like it, maybe 5%, but I think the most I saved in a month that first year I was debt-free was 12%. It sort of fluctuates now because since last summer I’ve been a full-time freelancer, so now it’s probably 15%. And the first year that I was doing this experiment I had a full-time job, [laughs] so I had regular income, which made it a little bit easier to figure it all out.
So that first year, I lived on 51% and then saved 31% and I travelled with 18%. So I did a lot of trouble that year, but I’m not doing that this year. I’m not really doing any travel really this year. So, 25-30% of my income that I’m able to save now, and still spend a ton of money on travel, at least last year.
Sandi: You know what I love about this and I love about your blog, is that it’s not about not spending. It’s about spending on the things that actually bring you fulfillment, meaning, real utility. That’s something that I think if we could—of course, here’s my prescription for the whole world. If we could all just kind of focus in on the things that actually—and I think it’s a period of time that you have to do it, of course—but you focus in on the things that are really important to you. And it’s not a matter of deprivation because you can’t go buy that extra shirt that you don’t really need. It’s I get to buy these things that are meaningful to me.
Cait: Yeah, I think “utility” is a great word for it. Like one of the things I think about a lot with minimalism stuff is when you look around your home, you should actually, like your objects are supposed to be useful. Like it’s okay to have a little bit of decorative stuff and stuff like that, but everything is meant to be used. So if you have all this stuff that’s not being used, it’s literally not serving its purpose. So if you donated, or maybe someone else can actually use it, for what it’s worth.
So yeah, I think minimalism in general, at least most of the conversations I have with people who identify as minimalists, like they’re quite happy to spend money. Like I spend a lot of money on travel. But yeah, like that first year, just been totally honest, I think I spent around $10,000. I had an amazing year.
I think the other thing that was important for me, if we talked more money stuff, is I think one of the problems I used to have is when I used to think about savings is I was like, you know, everyone tells you to save 10% or 20%, and I like actually doing it backwards. Like I think the most important thing should actually be getting your living expenses to kind of a number that you average out every month over the year. For me, I know it’s about $2,300 a month, but some months it will be like $2,600 or so. Then I had a crazy month a couple months ago when it was only like $1,800. But I know I need $2,300 per month on average, and then everything else should be saved or spent on travel.
And in doing that, because when I get paid or every time I get money I do put some of it aside right away. But then all the time, like I always shuffling it all over to savings. I’m like, “I don’t need this. I don’t this. It just needs to go”.
Kyle: Yeah, I find it hard. I have a hard time explaining to people sort of my views on money because they hear youngandthrifty.ca or blondeonabudget.ca—these names, and they’re like, “Oh, it’s like all about being cheap” or they’re like my students, “Mr. Prevost. Did you see that deal that’s on them?” I’m like, “Yeah, do you need that, though?” It’s not really a deal. So it’s not about being cheap, it’s about getting utility out of your money. And why do I want to invest? I want to invest to keep score, as the billionaires say. I’m not billionaire status. [laughs] Breaking news. [laughs]
And so it’s just a matter of at some other point in my life, living the lifestyle I want and putting my money where I value sort of that piece of life. But it’s like a really hard concept to get across. It’s either like you seem to either just be totally buying into the consumerism. You know, Steve Jobs tells you what you need mindset, or you’re buying into the, “Oh, don’t buy anything” like just live on the street and sort of extremes.
These people, when they hear the word minimalism, they’re like yeah, they haven’t bought clothes in 8 years. [laughs]
Cait: The funny thing I’ll say is like a minimalist will probably spend the most on clothes, in the few items that they buy. I’m not everyone, but I know some who are like very happy to spend $200 on jeans because it’s the one pair that they’re going to wear for the year and they’re not going to buy a pair that’s 20 bucks. Certain items I’m on-board with them. I’ll pay good money for a jacket. Like a rain jacket that is very important in BC. It would be the same as like you guys, like you have crazy cold winters so you need a solid jacket.
Sandi: I don’t even want to think about it. [laughs]
Cait: Is it snowing right now?
Sandi: It’s awful. It’s really horrible. [laughs]
Cait: I haven’t actually I looked because I’m so used to going to Toronto every two months for work and I haven’t been out in a while.
Sandi: That’s probably wise. [laughs] So Cait, why don’t you tell us a little bit about then what you’re doing. I mean, I think your calendar, your planner for the year, came from your own spending structure and infrastructure. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about that.
Cait: Oh, like Mindful Budgeting? So I first came out with it just as like a print product, so people can just download the PDFs and print them off once a month. I don’t know. Everyone always hears or when you hear financial advice, it’s like “try to curb your spending, check your spending”, but it felt like if I could actually create a sheet that made it really easy. Like sometimes you don’t think about it.
I worked in online learning for five years, and Kyle knows this as a teacher, sometimes I used to use notebook for it and it was a mess or whatever, but whatever works with that. Like they need some more structure. Like in the lesson plan, you need it actually out in front of you and what you’re supposed to do. So I just thought, if I can lay it out in template format, then that will be the best way.
So really it’s just like tracking your spending every week and learning how to budget. But the biggest thing is at the end of every week and every month. So every week there are three questions to ask yourself, and it’s really just making you reflect on the money that you spent in the week before. So some of it’s like what the best money you spent? How many times have you ever asked yourself that? It could be anything, like it could be like the $5 coffee that you took a girlfriend out for because you hadn’t seen her in a month, or whatever. Or it could be that I’m buying a car battery tonight. [laughs]
Kyle: Now you can drive. [laughs]
Cait: It’s wonderful. [laughs] It could be anything. And asking yourself stuff like that every week. And then just like what do you want to work on and stuff like that. But asking yourself that every week and it doesn’t take that long to answer it, but making yourself reflect on it, it just keeps putting back into you, okay what do I value and what am I okay spending money on.
I used to hate when I was still in debt and paying it off it off, that was the first time I’d ever started tracking my spending, and I hated it. Five days a week I wrote down that I went to Starbucks. Now, I’m like I will go out for coffee occasionally with a friend. It’s so crazy how this switch has happened, but it’s not that I’m anti-Starbucks or anti-takeout coffee. I love—if I treat myself—I love like a nice latte, but I actually like generally hate things like waiting in line. The drink maybe not being full enough or the taste the way you wanted, or whatever, and then you’re like, “Oh, I wasted $5 on this!”
But it’s mostly out of waiting. Even takeout. Like going to restaurants and stuff, there’s a couple that I know because I have friends who own them, so I know I’ll always have a great time. But now, generally I hate waiting in line just to sit down and then waiting for your food. The worst is like waiting for bill, to pay for the meal that you already waited and waited for. But it’s interesting, it’s been a really like long-term change. None of this stuff happened overnight.
But yes, so for mindful budgeting, it’s really going back and asking yourself every week what you value spending money on. And then at end of every month, I have different questions that I’ll ask them to check in on, but some of it could be like you know maybe you’ve never been on a shopping budget and maybe don’t want to, but like based on your last month of spending, what do you think you could cut out next month? And it could be one thing, like maybe it’s just that you stopped going to Walmart because you’re picking too much extra stuff up. [laughs] It could be anything. So it’s just really making people more mindful of the decisions that they’re making every day.
The feedback from it has been fascinating, because it was one of those things where I like this is just stuff that I do, without all the paper or like messy notebooks. [laughs] This just what I do. And then when people actually use it, the feedback is crazy. I had one girl write a blog post on her own blog saying her and her husband paid off $5,000 in debt last month just because they were more mindful of all that they were doing with their money. I don’t know how much you make, but that’s major. [laughs]
But even just little stuff, like I’ve never realized how much I was actually spending going to Tim Hortons every morning, or I’ve never realized this or that, and these other goals are more important to me. So then they feel comfortable stopping it. It’s like they realize that you know what I’d rather do this though, so they don’t want to do it anymore.
And it becomes second nature to us. I know I don’t value takeout coffee anymore, so it’s easy for me to get rid of. But it’s also took a long time for me to get there.
Sandi: That’s also something that people don’t realize when they first have that epiphany, that like “Oh, I have to change and I need to do all these things”, I always feel like a really wet blanket sometimes, [laughs] but I feel like I need to discourage people in order to encourage them later. I’m telling them it’s not easy and that it’s going to take a long time, it’s so worth it. I think we actually have to stick with actually paying attention—and to borrow a word—being mindful of what’s happening while you do it. That’s really great. Good.
Kyle: Yeah, I know one time after I got done reading one of Cait’s posts. I’m, I guess, sort of a naturally rural-born minimalist in that I’ve never had a major shopping centre close by, so that part’s good, but my one weakness is Amazon. And Amazon is awesome at getting you to buy stuff you sort of might want or you might use them to project images of yourself, like you were saying, Cait. It’s easy to collect books instead of read books, and there’s a difference there. And so I am quite conscious of that. It’s like, “No, before I buy anything from Amazon…” And Amazon’s scary because they’ll email me. I always joke that they know me better than I know me, because they’re emailing me, “Your new author came out. And if you like that author, maybe there’s this”.
Jackson: I’m totally zoned in that track right now, Kyle. Stef and I have been doing a lot of canning and we’ve got some plum preserves that we’re going to make into fruit leather and we needed some trays for our dehydrator. Apparently there’s special trays on Amazon and they’re $40 for two trays. And I thought these were like dollar store material, so I’m like “Forget it, I’m not buying them on Amazon”, and the next day on my Facebook feed it’s like, “Do you need trays?” [laughs] I’m like this is on my Facebook page and they’re following me around. Seriously, it’s terrible. Yeah, I just want to jump on it and yes, if you’re an impulsive person, avoid Amazon.
Kyle: Or just let me be aware, whether it’s keeping it in the cart for 48 hours or whatever, sort of tips you want to use. Just be aware, all this studies show that if you think about thinking, like if you are cognizant to the fact that Amazon doesn’t want you to think, you’re going to be okay. A small amount of satisfying those impulses is okay, but just totally giving in, because Amazon one-click shopping. It’s perfect. It’s the perfect modern way to overspend.
Jackson: And a warning. I know I’ve put this out probably in season one of Because Money. One-click shopping is one click. I had no idea. I loaded my shopping cart up with 9 different headphones. I was going to do comparisons after. I’m like “One click to buy?” and it’s like $384 on my credit card. I’m like “Oh no!” I got Christmas presents for months. It happens and it happens to me, so I avoid Amazon.
Cait: Well, that’s the thing. I actually was never a big shopper, like in-store. Amazon was it for me too. Anytime I saw a book like mentioned, it was like “Oh, I should read that”. [laughs] I would go on Amazon and put it in the shopping cart and then do whatever it took to get it up to $25 so you could get free shipping, and so I did that constantly. I probably bought 4-6 books minimum every single month. And I can read that now—I’m proud to say—but like I never read that much back then. So I was like, “What was I doing?” I’m just stockpiling books for like one day when they’re not available? I have no idea. [laughs]
Kyle: But you’ve got an awesome book collection, which was the main idea.
Cait: Actually I got rid of the books too. I mean, I donated to the library; I didn’t burn books or anything. [laughs]
Jackson: Start a fire in your backyard.
Kyle: Well, before we ride off into the sunset, Cait, where can our audience find you if they want to learn more about minimalism and some of the resources you have, and listen to your podcast?
Cait: Yeah, all right, new podcast.
Jackson: You just like rocked in how many Canadian podcasts?
Cait: Yeah, it’s not like that every day, but it was wild. It was like number five in the first few days, like in the business category.
Jackson: Very cool. Well done.
Cait: Yeah, it was wild, also because we did all the things wrong. They tell you, like when you launch a podcast, have x many episodes. I didn’t do any of that. [laughs]
I’m blondeonabudget.ca or .com, Twitter, Instagram, Bloglovin. Carrie Smith and I, who writes a blog called Careful Cents. We combined our brands and created a little podcast called Budget and Cents. So that’s out now.
Kyle: All right, cool. Well, stay warm out there, Canada. We’ll catch you next week on the Because Money podcast.
Jackson: Good-bye.
