At just 27, Cait Flanders knows what it's like to be buried in debt and to dig your way out of it. The New Westminster resident chronicled her two-year journey, which started with a $28,115 debt load, on her Blonde on a Budget blog. Last month, she made the final payment on her debt.
"I was swiping for a lifestyle I couldn't afford," Flanders says, describing her previous ways.
The end came when she finally looked at a credit card statement and absorbed the reality of her dire financial situation.
"One day I just stopped avoiding my credit card statements and looked at them and realized I was basically completely maxed out," she says. "I only had about $100 left on the limit, and I had maybe $100 in my chequing account, and I had to make that last for six weeks."
Along with credit card debt, Flanders had financed a new car and had about $4,500 in student loan debt.
"I don't really think my story is different than anyone else in that sense. I was paying for all of the things that everyone tries to pay for and wants to do and tries to own. Even getting to that point of being maxed out, I don't think that's unique. I just realized I had to do something about it," she says.
Once she digested the debt, Flanders says there were nights she would go to bed crying. Her family didn't know about the situation either.
"They had no idea I was maxed out," she says. "What was hardest for me - my dad, money has always been a topic of conversation at the dinner table for us . We talked about credit cards. We talked about saving."
Flanders was willing to go to any length to pay down the debt. She even moved in with her parents for six months, avoided shopping - online and in stores, and even stopped having her hair done.
"I basically just learned how to say no to everything," Flanders says. "There were simple things you need like a new pair of jeans, something cheap. I just wouldn't buy anything, if I didn't need it. It was very much living on the basics."
There was one time she nearly caved to go on a 10-day trip to Nicaragua with friends for only $1,000.
"I almost made myself go on it, but I just knew that was a $1,000 that I could throw on my debt, and I wanted my debt gone."
Flanders also created a way to sort of tell on herself - she started her Blonde on a Budget blog.
"It was kind of funny, when I first started it, I thought I would post very boring things - my daily transactions - just for myself," Flanders says, laughing.
But those updates struck a cord with readers and others in the financial blogosphere - a vast online world that Flanders is now a part of. Her story garnered media attention, and she has been featured in several publications.
Her blog also caught the eye of Flanders's current boss, who plucked her from a job as a production technician for the Ministry of Education to her current role as the editor of a mortgage rate comparison website.
The new job took Flanders to Toronto for several months, but she eventually moved back to B.C. (she still works for the company).
"I really like it here. It's kind of weird - I don't know why yet, but it just feels like home already," she says about New Westminster.
The debt may be gone, but Flanders says she won't be saving much this summer - she has some travelling to do, though she's paying for it all without going into the red. Once the season has past, she plans to start beefing up an emergency fund, then she'll start putting more money into her RRSP's, and finally, down the road, she wants to buy a place.
Given her track record, it seems pretty likely Flanders will achieve whatever she puts her blonde head to.
To follow Flanders' blog, visit www. blondeonabudget.ca.
