I gave up shopping for a year
A spending addiction left CAIT FLANDERS with huge debts so she took drastic action to change her ways. Here she explains why having less gave her everything she wanted
AS SHE looked at the mountain of clutter she had cleared out of her house, Cait Flanders couldn’t believe how much she had bought over the years.
After kicking the spending habit that had landed her in £18,000 of debt, Cait had vowed to give or throw away the vast majority of what she owned.
But as she looked at the piles of old belongings it was suddenly clear to her why she had shopped so much in the first place.
“I realised I had been buying things for this ideal vision I had of myself. I wanted to be the type of person who read classic novels or self-help books,” says Cait, 32, a writer who lives in Squamish, British Columbia.
“I bought creative projects such as scrapbooks that I thought a more talented or interesting version of myself would like. But eventually I had to accept no book or product would make me a better person.”
Cait was by no means alone in collecting clutter. Research by VoucherCodes shows that the UK is a nation of hoarders, with the average Briton owning 71 items they don’t use.
In fact nearly a fifth of the clothing we buy goes unused, alongside knitting equipment, musical instruments, shoes, candles and cookery books.
For Cait the junk began to pile up when she got her first credit card at 19.
Instead of paying off the debt at the end of each month she paid the minimum amount and carried on shopping for things she didn’t need. When she reached the limit on one credit card she’d apply for another or take out a loan.
“I always said ‘yes’, whether it was something I wanted to buy or an invitation to go out for dinner,” says Cait.
By the time she was 25 she had racked up £18,000 of debt, more than half her annual income of £30,000 working for the Ministry of Education in Canada.
“I used to cry myself to sleep thinking about the mess I was in financially. But there was one night in particular that made me finally change my ways for good.
“I remember looking in my account and realising I was £60 away from the limit on my credit card and I only had another £60 in the bank.
“Somehow that money had to last me six weeks until I next got paid. I had hit rock bottom and knew I needed to change my ways.”
CAIT decided from that moment on she would use all the money she could to pay off her debt. Throwing herself into her job she curbed her shopping habit, turned down dinners with friends and put half of her salary towards making repayments.
After two years Cait was no longer in the red. But although she had cleared her debt her house was still piled high with clutter.
“I had so much stuff I started losing the things I needed, like tubes of toothpaste and my favourite green top.
“My wardrobe was crammed with clothes I never wore and there was a never-ending supply of toiletries in the bathroom that I kept on topping up.
“I was making excuses to spend money on things I didn’t need.”
So in 2014 Cait made a new vow: not to buy anything new for a whole year apart from groceries and absolute essentials. “It sounds like an extreme solution but I was sick of being surrounded by stuff I didn’t need. It was overwhelming,” she says.
Her friends were bemused by her decision.
“They didn’t understand it at first. Sometimes they would talk about clothes they’d bought and then look at me and say, ‘Oh you probably don’t want to hear about this’. It’s funny how people react when you do something out of the norm,” she says.
Over the year Cait gave away most of what she owned in a bid to be free of clutter.
One of the hardest things to tackle was her enormous collection of books.
“Every time I heard about a book that sounded interesting I bought it,” she says. “I never paused to ask myself if I would ever actually read it.
“Over the years I bought hundreds of books but I hadn’t read half of the ones on my shelf.”
Cait kept just eight of her favourite books and 54 she wanted to read before donating the rest to her local library.
She also gave away nearly all her clothes – leaving just 30 key items in her wardrobe – and she poured all her duplicate toiletries down the sink so she was left with just one of each.
She even learnt to sew so she could repair her clothes.
“My mum and my aunt were both seamstresses so I asked them to teach me so I could mend some of my clothes.”
At the end of the year Cait was proud to have stuck to her shopping ban and after clearing out her belongings she could finally focus on the things that mattered.
“I think I built stronger friendships that year because once you stop trying to look for happiness elsewhere you start to realise life is pretty good, like when you go for a hike with a friend.”
In fact Cait felt so much better after her year of not shopping that she kept it going for another year and now she only buys things when it is absolutely necessary. “When I shop now, I make more meaningful purchases rather than buying things to fill a void. “I’m so grateful for the shopping ban because it helped me figure out who I am and I finally learnt to love myself.”
To order a copy of The Year Of Less by Cait Flanders (£15.99, Hay House) call the Daily Express bookshop on 01872 562 310 or visit expressbookshop.co.uk