Imagine going 2 weeks without spending a single penny on anything at all! That's the goal blogger Katy Wheelock and her husband set for themselves late last year.

Katy told Clark about the experience and what she learned from it in an exclusive interview today. First, though, let's lay down Katy's ground rules: She and her hubby continued paying all their regularly scheduled bills (mortgage, cable, Internet, etc.) during the 2-week period, but they cut out extras like gas money, food money and any discretionary funds.

Their food needs were already met before the experiment began; the family (which also includes 2 children, ages 5 and 7) had a pre-paid membership to a local farm coop. That means they received a bag of vegetables every week, along with milk and eggs.

They held off buying gas for as long as possible until her husband needed it to go to work one day. Likewise, Katy does admit that one night she broke down and spent $6 on some special snacks she needed for her medically necessary eating regimen. But that was it. So in the end, they spent $6 plus the cost of a tank of gas during an entire 2 weeks.

By Katy's estimate, her family saved $1,300 by cutting out unnecessary spending. The experiment ended shortly before Thanksgiving, and the Wheelocks found they didn't even have a desire to shop on Black Friday!

In fact, they're much more conscious about their spending now. Previously they might, for example, go and grab a coffee without even thinking about it if they had a lag in their day between appointments. No more.

For more info on Katy, be sure to check out her blog -- PlanetPerspectives.blogspot.com.

Clark absolutely adores Vanguard, which is one of the world's largest investment houses. The company is actually like the equivalent of a credit union for investing because it's wholly owned by account holders.

Everything about Vanguard provides value for you as a member. The management fees attached to Vanguard's investment choices are as little as one-fifteenth to one-twentieth the fees you would pay at other investment houses.

Vanguard now has customer deposits of $1 trillion -- that's 1,000 billion dollars! And while other investment houses saw people pull $151 billion out as the market tanked in 2008, Barron's reports Vanguard brought in $27 billion in new dollars.

The house that founder John Bogle built counts index funds among its specialties. Index funds come with lower costs than traditional mutual funds. In addition, they normally don't get hit with hefty short-term gains taxes.

Of course, Vanguard is not perfect. Like everyone else, their targeted retirement funds had a very ugly year in 2008 and really burned a lot of people close to retirement. But if you're looking to get started in investing, Clark likes the Vanguard Star fund, which takes $1,000 to open.

Other similar companies that Clark likes include T. Rowe Price, which focuses on managed mutual funds.

CLARKONOMICS: There are several new signs that our nation's economic situation is worsening. Citibank is about to be split up into pieces. Bank of America, meanwhile, is in need of a second round of bailout money after receiving an initial $25 billion. Finally, a new estimate from Wall Street puts the total value of the banking sector's toxic assets at $2.1 trillion -- that's $2,100 billion dollars!

You'll recall that the original Wall Street bailout was around $700 billion. But now it appears that the actual real problem is three times the size of the entire original bailout. Meanwhile, Clark says he's not excited about the new $850 billion stimulus proposal floating around Congress.

If Clark were in charge of the bailout, he'd triage the banks and divide them into good (solvent) banks and bad (insolvent) banks. The bad banks would be taken over by the FDIC, and the good banks would receive money to re-capitalize. The reality is that we don't have enough money to save all the banks.

Right now, the banks are allowed to be as large as 10% of their deposit dollars. Bank of America got a waiver that allowed them to exceed that limit and thus become "too big to fail." But Clark believes that number should be dialed back to 2% so that no bank can grow to be "too big to fail." We should not have a bloated banking sector that could imperil our entire economy.

Yet Clark doesn't want to create unnecessary panic over this issue. His advice is to just do what you can in your own life to reduce debt and dial back spending.

MONEY-SAVING MOMENT: Does Clark have a deal for all you talkaholics! A new shot has been fired in the price war over unlimited cell phone plans.

Most of the Big 4 carriers have plans that hover near $100/month. But on Thursday, Jan. 22, Boost Mobile will roll out a nationwide unlimited calling/texting/web plan with no contracts for just $50/month.

There are, however, some downsides. The cell phones available through Boost are antiquated, according to Clark. And they're not subsidized, so be sure to look on eBay or Craigslist for a deal on a used one. In addition, Boost operates on the Nextel network, which doesn't always offer the best call quality.

Clark's hope is that the Boost deal establishes a new competitive price point that will put pressure on the Big 4 to match.

In related news, AT&T actually spammed their own customers with unsolicited texts by the millions telling them to watch American Idol! Thankfully, they didn't charge those customers who weren't on unlimited texting plans, but there's been no formal apology for the spam text as of yet.

Finally, AT&T and Verizon customers looking to stop spam texts will benefit from reading New York Times technology blogger David Pogue's tips.