If you needed to?

We have cable tv and internet and could ditch those. We rent movies and eat out at least once a month too. I also hit the thrift store at least monthly.

drop direct tv...internet...phone (I've lived w/o a phone...dh doesn't think it's possible...giggle)...I'd sell the TV's, Stereo....

They'd just have to read more....ummmmmmm

no more cream sticks for lunch....mmmmmm...I'd miss those...giggle

get rid of video games...but sinse I've already sold the Tv's...we could just box'em up...hehehehe

We don't have cable so I couldn't cut back there.

We could cut the internet, eating out, buying material and I too think I could possibly live w/o a phone.

Cell phones (we'd have to purchase long distance calling cards though since we don't have long distance service on our home phone)

Books (even though I buy them at yard sales and thrift stores, we have plenty and we have an awesome library system to use)

Christmas ornaments! (again I buy at yeard sales and thrift stores along with 75-90% off post holiday sales, but we have plenty as it is)

Digital cable (although dh would not be happy because that's where the Family Channel, DIY, Outdoor Channel, and several others he likes to watch are)

We do not have cable either. We could get rid of internet, the phone, trash service(we live far enough out in the country we could burn our trash)!!


I rarely to never use the phone, hate talking on it!!! I would miss the internet but not as much knowing that my family was eating, or warm, or whatever the financial reasons were for all the cutbacks!!!!

Cell Phones. Pop. those are my only two "luxuries". We don't really buy anything extra - we pretty much only buy what we need - I used to spend money on the kids but I am not allowed to anymore. Most of what I do for fun I already have and have had for a long time (I used to be quite the spendthrift - my sewing and craft room looks like a store, as does our movie and music collection, our toiletries and pampering things, our book collection) Oh I did just buy three books I didn't need - my one remaining weakness.

My cell phone (dh's is required for work), dish network, netzero, eatting out. I'm sure there is more!

Eating out-- right now we budget for an inexpensive lunch out for dh and I, once a week (that's as close as a date as we get)

We could cut our meat consumption. We currently do one meatless meal a week, but we could do more of those.

Electricity-- dh has been using the clothes dryer quite a bit lately, and we've been lax about unplugging certain items or about leaving lights on when we're not in the room.

my cell phone, cable t.v., eating out, new clothes.....hmmmm let me think some more about this

Groceries, I could purchase our groceries for $100.00 per month, but there would be no variety. However heat and the roof over our heads would be more important.

Gas we could stay home more.

Contacts I have glasses I can wear.

Cable and internet.

My cell phone, I use it for the free weekends mostly to talk to people that are long distance and like the idea of the school being able to reach me at anytime, but I could go with out it.

Cable TV could go. In fact, I just reduced our service yesterday to the bare minimum. DD is not too happy about that. In fact the TV itself could just be sold, and I would never miss it. We only have one, and it is ten years old, so probably wouldn't get much for it.

Books and magazines. My weakness. Actually, we have already quit subscribing to any more magazines, and I have stopped our newspaper subscription. I am trying to buy my books at the thrift store and Friends of the Public Library used book store, instead of the book clubs and book stores. We use the library every week, but we have always done that. I just like to have a huge home reference library. I love books! We buy books for homeschooling, too.

Hmmm, let's see....

Satellite TV
Extra Phone line
Cell Phones
Eating Out
Junk Food

Oops! I forgot about magazines - I am kindof a junkee about these and they will all be up for renewal in January!:bang: Great, Now I have Guilt!!

Eating out, although we have already cut back quite a bit. We could drop the newspaper and a couple magazines and the internet, although I would probably feel cut off from the rest of the world if we dropped those! :confused:

We would cut down to only the basic programming on our satellite, stop eating out, and stop impulse purchases.

This is such a hard question we already have cut out so much that anything else would drastically effect our enjoyment of life.

We are already doing these things:
~no cable t.v
~my DH works from home 3 days a weeks so we could go down to a one car family and save on gas.
~we need dial up internet connect ($4.95 www.access4less.com) for DH work.
~we have one computer for DH work
~all our clothes are second hand...even shoes
~we have a pre-pay cell phone for emergencies (one for the whole family)
~we don't go out to eat
~we don't rent movies

If we were forced to I guess we would give up YMCA membership for the family. However that place is our whole world. We are there a lot and it is a source of great family time pleasure. So, if we needed to we could cut that out...but that would be so sad.

We do spend about $5.50 on an organic frozen pizza every friday for dinner. We get it at our local grocery store because it;s friday..who wants to cook?? LOL! I guess we could cut that out too.

We could cut out internet service, a second vehicle, and some of our animals ( DS has 5 goats and about 50 chickens.)

With DH being in collage full time and us not having an income, we have pretty much cut out a lot. I`m sure that we could cut back more if we had to though.

I originally was reading this thinking, we don't spend on extra things....then I really thought about it - there's quite a bit we could do:

~Cell phones ($65.53/mo. - although this would be very difficult for dh - as fire chief ppl. are always trying to get a hold of him)
~Internet ($21.95/mo.)
~Eating out (~$75/mo.)
~We could sell our newest vehicle (less than a week old), a 1997 Chevy Tahoe and get by on just our little car. (Totally paid for, better gas mileage, but barely fits the three of us, let alone anything else!)
~Dh could sell his Harley (again totally paid for, but it's a luxury, not a necessity and he knows if need be it'll be the first to go!)
~Cut back on electrical use (I have a drying rack, but honestly I'm too lazy to use it!)
~Cook more from scratch (I do a lot already, but still rely on some prepackaged mixes).

~We already don't have a home phone, just our cell phones
~we got rid of satellite (direct TV) and got basic cable and cable internet where we are living now
~We've not signed up for trash pickup here yet ($20's to start, $15 a month on top of our water bill) but we also live like less than 5 minutes from the dump

other than those things that we decided we didn't need anymore when we moved this last time, I don't think I could give up anything else, except maybe eating out less and cooking more

Well, we have DirecTV, which we are under contract for until March, I wouldnt cancel, but call and find out what the least amount of things I could have without breaking the contract.

Cut the DSL Internet. Have to live without and miss that alot.

Phone would be next. Cut back on it to the very basics and give it up if we have to.

Right now we can be a one car family. DH brings the truck home bobtail from the truck stop. But with 5 kids(almost) taking him back and forth to work locally would be too much of a hassle. So if he worked at home, the second car would just have basic insurance on it and only driven to and from his work.

Definitly stay out of stores that siphon the money off slowly ie Dollar Tree and Big Lots. LOL. Stick to the list when shopping. Helps not to take kids with me, but hard with dh gone so much.

thought of a few more things...once a month I go to the 2nd hand store and buy books...$2 ...not much but it adds up...stop being lax about using the dryer. Wash clothes by hand (less electricity). Turn water heater off when not in use...be more dilegent about unplugging unused items. cut out stereo use. Use the microwave more often to cook rather than the conventional oven.

Stop buying clearance just because it's a good deal and I might need it sometime.

keep a detailed frugal notebook and track my spending. Stock pile more.

~Cell phones
~DirecTV
~internet (if need be)

One of the things I find most interesting about this thread is that so many people are saying TV/cable/satelite - DH and I just gave ours up a month and a half ago. Sold the TV, stereo, VCR, DVD player, CD player, tuner, receiver - whole nine yard. We have a small boombox with radio and CD in it that we use if we want to listen to something. We'd love to have a big flatscreen TV, but we're just going to live without it until we can afford it, because we're not going to put it on a credit card.

What could I live without if I had to?
*My cellphone.
*I could go to a cheaper place to get my hair cut.
*Once or twice a year I treat myself to a manicure that I could give up.

after that - well - probably some cutbacks could be made in the grocery dept, I guess.

We could cancel dishnet, cut back to 1 cell phone (dh needs it for work), cut out eating out at all (probably $75/mo.), internet (but won't until it's the very last thing we can give up!:yikes: ), sell some of our belongings, we could give up travel of any kind, use of the dryer, all extras on the telephone......

:bump: We could cut expenses by being more careful with electricity. It often feels like we're too "plugged in."

I could buy cheaper pet food for my dogs and cats but that would be one of the last things I would do to cut costs. Weird, I know, but I love my critters and we feel that Science Diet has kept them healthy which translates to fewer vet bills. And at my house, having no pets is just not an option.

I could let my hair grow instead of getting it cut. I could also color it myself but then I wouldn't get to see my hairdresser who I consider a friend. Plus it would probably fall out or something if I tried to do it myself. I am not good with hair.

And then there's the stuff like using the dryer even less than I do already, etc.

We have got rid of our second car. Now that we have committed to a high mortgage (payments will reduce after 3 years when we have paid back 5%) we realise we have to make more cut backs.
We are giving up our $200 a month carpark and will be catching the train to work for the same price as the car park, thus saving on gas and car maintenance as well. We are also going without cable tv as of next month. We are both due for payrises in April so maybe the cable tv will come back after that time - we don't go out or have an entertainment amount in our budget so don't usually feel bad paying for it but we just won't be able to afford it once our mortgage payments start unless our salaries increase.
Not much else we can cut. We both have prepay cellphones. We both took the voicemails off those cellphones so we don't have to pay to listen to messages. I budget $100 a week for groceries but I am finding that for 2 adults, 2 dogs we can get buy on $60 a week and still have plenty to eat (although we're vegetarian which helps). We do drink wine but have switched to buying it in casks, which would have mortified me 2 years ago

With the exception of internet and buying less food, there's isn't much more for me to cut out unless we want to risk going without a car, utilities and insurance, medicine.

Lets see i could cut cable and cut back on food oil for heater not internet thats how we make part of our living

Go back to not having cable again
No more cell phone
No more hair coloring or do it myself
No eating out
Cut down on groceries

Probably eating out and scrpbookinf supplies. Lol

I have cut out 2 of my kit subscriptions and saved $200 a month.

If we had to get black belt, we could drop all cable, Netflix, cut groceries to $20 a week, conserve gas by walking to work/working from home, cheaper coffee, free milk instead of half and half in coffee, really just no extras.

I would also take more weekend call from my team at work and DH could do more website design on the side.

The thing that would have the largest effect on me would be selling my truck and buying a "beater" car. I could do that right now by buying the car with the equity I have in my truck. I would not miss the $500 payment or the large quantities of gas I pour into it. I have a hard time justifying the truck even though I find myself using it for it's intended purposes quite often. I supposed it's relative newness, reliability, and the fact that I'm the only person who has owned it and I know it's been well-maintained are all excuses to keep it. And the 4wd. If I didn't have that, I'd have more money, but I would probably get stuck or slide off the road several times a year.

Internet is free, dish is $6/mo (although I could get rid of it- I rarely turn on the tv.) Electricity, water, trash, are all free. I've cut my grocery bill nearly in half just by getting familiar with this site, but I strongly suspect that I could cut it in half again by cutting out pre-prepared lunch foods and luxury items such as shrimp cocktail. I could also stop my occasional milk purchases. After that, cut off my friends who ask me to go out with them and dump my boyfriend who I cook for all the time. ;)

"IF" we had to, I would guess ditch the internet (gosh that would be hard) and the home phone entirely.

We dont have cable or tv or any sort so can't do anything with those :)

"IF" we had to, I would guess ditch the internet (gosh that would be hard) and the home phone entirely.

We dont have cable or tv or any sort so can't do anything with those :)

I don't think I could cope without my internet. We are on the best price for our plan too.

I would eliminate the cell phones, after all... somehow we survived all those years without them! I'd keep the house phone, but switch to dial-up internet rather than cable internet. We would cut cable to the very very basic.

We'd stop eating out, and I would start cooking cheaper foods. If things got really bad, we have stuff we could sell, but when the economy is bad it's not always easy to do this.

There are many more things we could do... it's funny, we were just having this conversation last week. Dh may be looking at some layoff time over the winter, there just isn't much work out there :sigh:

I like comparing this thread with the thread that mentions what things we won't sacrifice/change for frugality. It's interesting that some of us would not give up pop for frugality, but some would give up the internet, phone or tv if they had to. (and I don't mean anyone specific that I'm comparing...It was just that I was reading both threads and couldn't help but see what some will stop and won't stop spending money on)

We couldn't cut much at this point. DH's work requires us to be on the road all the time now, and his company pays for our housing, most of our travel, and most of our food. We rented our home, for enough that the rental income almost covers the mortgage, property taxes, and insurance, so the only extra expense we have right now is our cell phones, plus a little bit on the house. We will be ditching those too, because we will be going to countries where our provider doesn't provide service. Most of the extended stay hotels we stay in provide free internet. We could (and should) sell our vehicles that are in storage at home. Even though they are paid for, we are still paying for registration and insurance on three vehicles, and that could go away. We do eat out occasionally, which we could stop if we had to. It seems a shame to travel and not get to experience the local cultures a little bit, so we budget a certain amount for that each week.

When we lived at home, we didn't have cable, but we could have done without internet and cell phones. We always got DVD's and books from the library, so that wasn't an expense for us either. We probably could have been a little tighter with the electric bill, and trimmed our driving habits.

If I absolutely had to... internet. It'd be very tough as it's currently our ONLY source of entertainment outside of each other and our dog, lol. I do read a lot and my grandma has a huge collection of books that I could borrow (along with the library obviously), but DBF would be lost. We don't go out or rent movies or anything!

We could also go w/o soda, lunch money for DBF, cut our gas budget back (no going across town once or twice a week for DBF to see his best friend, etc.), could prolly do better w/ groceries. I think that's about it at this point.

If I had to, I would do without everything except for needs.I know this because I have been there.Housing, food, vehicle , insurance,basic utilities- you get the drift. I would take the earned income credit I got every year and use it for health care insurance if I didn't have it through work.I sure would'nt be eating out, smoking, drinking, and maxing out credit cards.

Let's see, I could go without:
My morning Latte (I make it at home with my machine)
Scrapbooking supplies (I could scrap forever with what I already have!)
Eating Out (Unless it;s a mystery shop!)
HD tv package
I'm sure there;s lots more..............

I could do with out my XM radio, HBO and Cinemax, my cellphone, OnStar, most of my satellite channels, my weekly adenosine injections.

You know, as I think about this question, I realize that I am very blessed. I have lots of stuff that isn't a necessity. I grew up with no electric or running water, and while I don't really want to go back to that, I know that I could exist without a lot of things.

--Cable TV
--internet
--books (although I read at library and buy at yard sales)
--some food items that are little luxuries
--eating out (we don't do this often; 50c tacos on Tuesday at Taco Bell, 99c double cheese burgers on Friday night at Burger King)
--driving to see family out of state
--vacations (ouch...we love to travel....)
--massages (but that's hubby's gift to me for birthday and Christmas)
--scrapbooking and photo developing costs
--magazines ( I subscribe to HOME, but get other subscriptions as gifts)
--let's see..... what else.....

Let's see here. I could do without:

My cell phone
Cable TV
Scrapbooking supplies (like another poster said, I have enough supplies to keep me scraphappy for at least a year.)
Chocolate
Newspaper subscription
Chewing gum

~ my small allowence
~ DirectTV (though DH would battle he'd let me win if things were really tight on this one ...but forget the soda)
~ cut the cell phones to one that is a pay as you go(there is no house phone)
~ cut even the few out to eats
~ cut gifts

If it was me.
The TV and Internet land line phone. ( would keep min on trac phone in case of emergency and my sister or brother or DS or Fiance need me)
I could do without a lot of stuff if I had to.

I have gotten rid of a few things so far...

-magazine subscriptions.
-monthly dunkin donuts (now only use with gift card from epoll.com)
-saturday morning mcdonalds breakfast
-netflix and blockbuster monthly
-newspaper

Things I could get rid of and might in 2008...

-cable tv
-home phone (might not be able to because of daycare have to ask)

Would get rid of if I was broke.....
-internet ( but sure miss it!)
-eating out
-kids bowling ( they love it though!)
-daughters gymnastics ( she loves it!)

Cant get rid of ever....
-my car
-insurances
-electric, water, cell phone
-groceries, gas for car
-taxes on house

If I had to I could cut out:
Satelite TV
Bells and whistles on land line phone
Dunkin Donuts coffee runs
internet
soda, junk food, convenience foods
some electricity usage--use drying rack instead of elec. dryer ect.
netflix

Satellite - I could do without and just have my DVD player and movies

NEtflix - I "could" do away with this but at $6/month and getting atleast 6 movies/month, it actually saves me alot

I was just playing around with my online budget and it got me to thinking. Right now, I spend bare minimum $2500 a month. This includes mortgage, taxes, utilities, cable, internet, home and cell phones, sports, groceries, dining out, car payment, all insurances and gasoline.

If push came to shove, I could get that down some. I could drop groceries, get rid of cable and internet ( eek no frugal village!), cell phone, sports and dining out.

I could effectively cut out $400 a month and still have transportation to work, keep my home, and have power in it.

So rock bottom, we could be at just over $2000 a month.

How much could you cut out of your budget?

We could could also cut a bit off. We could cut cable/internet at $110/month. We could cut my cell phone at $60/month.

So there is $170. If we cut out eating out, we could cut another $100 (we normally don't spend it all...but that is what is budgeted). So there is $270.

Dh gets $50 allowance, I would cut that in a heartbeat...so there is another $200/month. So that is $470.00

I think that is about as rock bottom as we could go. We are pretty bared boned right now. Everything in addition to mortgage, utilities, car, groceries and insurance, is listed above. Everything extra gets put away for a rainy day!

Well we pay around $1250 a month for bills and around $100 or less for food so $1350.

That includes:
Mortgage, electric, phone/internet, cell phones, water and garbadge.

I dont think I could cut anything out sine we already cut out cable, I mean I might be ableto cut out the home phone and internet but I work using the internet so that's a necessity really. If I cut off the home phone I might save $20 a month.

I cant cut the cell phones since if I did we would pay $150 each phone for early termination fee.

Well if I was super-pressed I could cut out these monthly expenses:

- internet $22
- gifts $25 (mostly money in birthday cards)
- satellite tv $52
- blow money $40
- clothes $15

For a total of $154. I could also probably reduce the food bill by $25 or so, so roughly $179 a month savings, but man, I wouldn't want to have to! The level I'm at now is comfortable to me, anything more and I would definitely feel pinched.

If I wanted to go 'extreme frugal' we could do things here and there...

monthly bills -

car payment - 275.00 (no, selling is not an option)
car insurance - 75.00 (mandatory)
gas - varies (unfortunately, there isn't much in the way for public transportation but we try to fill only once a week)

vonage - 31.00 (cut-able)
cable/internet - 60.00 (cut-able, but that means no tv, at all)
cell phones - 100.00 (we still have 18 months before we can cancel without the fee, and neither of us feels comfortable not being able to be reached by DD, school, etc)
electricity - 67.00 (we could go to candle-light I suppose and with no tv or internet, it would go down I suppose)

food - varies (we could go 100% vegetarian -no meat- and try to grow more in the sandbox of a garden we have :lol: and I could can more). We could also apply for reduced lunch at school (.40/day) but we'd have to be severely hurting because DD can't eat white flour, processed foods, etc and thats all the school has to offer.

Things are tight here, and I have been toying with the no cable/internet but I think the Old Man would keel-over or slump in to a state of depression, as he puts it... work to live and live when you aren't getting your nose grinded. We don't go to movies, buy magazines, newspapers or music. He listens to music online, reads online, and we get movies at the library (they don't have much of a selection anymore). To keep him sane, I convinced myself that the $60 for the tv and internet was a fair price for his sanity and cheaper than weekly papers and magazine subscriptions.

I could probably cut out about $300 from various nonessential budget areas, mainly entertainment and food. Ive been working the last year or so on cutting out nonessentials. I just dropped my cellphone plan by $30 a month last month. I have to be more mindful of the minutes I use, but thats ok with me. I cut cable last July, dont miss it one bit. That saves $50 a month. If I had to, I could lower the speed on my internet and cancel Netflix. That would save about $30 a month. Cancelling internet wouldnt save me any money, because I make more a month on online surveys than my monthly bill costs. I really need to work on my grocery budget. I do alot of scratch cooking, but Im on a diet so Ive also been buying Lean Cuisine frozen meals. I only buy them on sale, but still, thats $1.50 a meal!

We could cut out internet and home phone (use cells required 4 work) $73

Cut out direct tv ~ $50
xm radio ~ $13.66
any school lunch for oldest~ $20
eatting out~$50


There is an easy $206.66 a month

We could also quit saving for gifts etc monthly, cut groceries, line dry all laundry etc, no extra trips and quit saving.

I could probably shave about $400-500 from our budget, and still live comfortably. Brian wouldn't be happy with losing Directv, but he'd get over it. And I could easily shave at least $200 from our grocery budget, maybe more. I could get rid of our land line phone, and just keep our cell phones.

We are already doing this with the Money Makeover this year. We've dropped expenses by $400/mth. Making our expenses around $1400cdn/mth.

Jean

We are pretty much as low as we could go right now. We only have the mortgage, utilities, food and gas. We could cut out cable and I could go to a cheaper dial up service for our internet but that would only save us about $60 a month. I wish I could squeeze a whole lot more out but that is the best we can do........anything extra goes into our EF:)

Monthly Bills:
Mortgage: $1000 (includes all taxes and insurance)
Automobile insurance: $90 (full coverage on two vehicles)
Life/long term disablilty/short term disability/cancer policies: $80
Health/dental: $250
FLEX Account contribution: $208
401K and other investiments: $400
United Way: $42
Power: $328
Water/Sewage/trash/garbage/recycle service: $150 (average)
Phone/cable tv/HS cable internet: $100
Groceries: $600
Kids' education: $400
Car/truck gas:$225
Other household/pet supplies: $75
Direct deposit savings: $500
Kids' sport fees, dues, lessons, equipment etc:$300
Other misc expences (gifts, kids' allownaces, fun money, haircuts, eyebrow waxings):$300

______________________________________________________________

That totals $5048 per month
Monthly salary after taxes is $6150.
______________________________________________________________

The first round of things we would cut out or cut back on would be:
Other misc. expences could be cut down some:$200/month savings
I could stay home more and cut out some car gas: $60/month savings
Groceries could be cut back a little: $150/month savings
United Way: $42/month savings

Most of our expences are non-negotible. The mortgage, health insurance, life/disability and cancer policies/ car insurance, power, water, education expences are musts. The FLEX contribution can not be stopped, but we could opt not to renew it for the following year (but that would be a stupid move for us since we have a lot of OOP medical expences like all of my co-pays and FLEX contributions are taken out before taxes making it tax free money).

Our utilites are pretty much as low as they can get. Our power is on the budget billing plan. The summer months our power can get as high as $600 and the winter as low as $175. Our water also fluxuates from $100-$300 depending on the month, averaging out at $150/month. Having the cable, phone or internet cut off is not an option. We are tv and internet people - it is like food and electricity to us. Our cell phones are paid for by MIL as a gift but dropping the land line phone would actually cause our cable/internet to increase a substantial amount and would not be cost effective. The kids do contribute a portion to their cell phone bills every month out of their own money.

Of course, if it came down to putting food on the table and a roof over our heads, we would do what had to be done to get us through.

I could cut out Directv which is $81. Cell phones--$110--Cut home phone down to basic--$40--Go back to dial up--or none at all $20-30. Sell my car--$360. Cut back groceries $150. For a grand total of between $750-$760. I am going to cut some of them back, just not get rid of them.

I live on $1,000 right now, and that includes my 1/2 of living expenses (food, elec, cable, rent) and my car insurance, cell phone, gasoline for car and cc debt.

If things were dire, where we couldn't afford food I could (with much sadness_ cut out:
My cell phone $30
My 1/2 cable (3 in 1 package-internet, home phone, and digital cable ) $65
That would save me $95 a month, but we would miss the internet and some of our cable channels. As well as the capability of communicating with anyone from home.

If I had to I could eliminate cable...internet..sell my vehicle..cut down on grocery bill is all we could cut...that being said it would cut the budget by $800.00 a month..However the bills that would be left for the month is our mobile home payment $236.00,,Heat $140.00,CC $120.00 payments..As of right now our take home pay is $4480.00..I could easily pickup more time at work if I wanted or needed to..that could easily bring in another $1000.00 a month without over time..but I hope I never have to...

This is something I've thought over and over. And all I can see that's cutable in my budget is to watch electric use and grocery bills.

I think I could cut out $500+- from spending. But it's going to take some time. My goal by the end of the year is to have this much cut off our debts by the end of the year.

Right now, we spend way too much. And since I've been keeping up with it in a journal, I'm amazed and disgusted with how much money we've spent this month.

I'm slowly going to cut back each month how much we allow ourselves to spend.

I could only cut $50 from my expenses. I'm down to almost the bare neccessities.

It would be easier for me to work more than to cut anything

Well, the kids have activities. Karate and dance totaly 110 a month, but I'm really not willing to tell them they can't do that. As far as bills, we could cut out cable, but I'd never cut out internet. I have a tracfone, pay as you go, and I wouldn't cut that out either (it's like an insurance policy if you get stuck on the road.)

OUr big expense is our automobiles. We both have payments on them and are paying $900 a month for the two of them. Luckily my BF got a company truck so we have at least cut out gas for him. Driving to the jobsite locations was costing us an arm and a leg in gas. Beside cable and internet we don't have much more. My work pays for my cell phone and my BF is still on his parents plan because theirs is so old it is only $9.00 a month for him to be on it. We could not get it cheaper than that.

We could cut out the luxuries: cable, internet, netflix. I couldnt get rid of the phone but I could get the basic package.

We could get rid of all extras:
*Dish Network
*Lawn and Pool Services
* Housekeeper
*Eating Out
*Health and Beauty Services
Cut Savings to the core,sell off antiques, guns, jewelry, downsize our home, sell off land assets.I could go to work. I feel we have options .

If disaster struck, I could probably cut about $1000 from our monthly budget by giving up restaurant meals & gourmet groceries, gymnastics lessons & math tutoring for the kiddos, and our internet service. If circumstances made it absolutely necessary, I'd rent a smaller/cheaper house or apartment, give up the second car, and sell some of our belongings.

I don't think i could reduce much .. but there are some rented or payment plans that will be finishing up with in the next few months so that will help.

Currently my bills are:
Rent- $495
Electric- $95-120 ( although this last month was $187 GASP)
Cell Phones- $120 ( Lowest Family plan 550 call anywhere mins/mo. after 7pm free, call sprint/nextel free( i can call my boss and she can call me free ), and all important Phone INSURANCE.. just incase, Phones were free, 2 year plan $200 per phone cancelation )
Living room Suite- $112 per mo ( 3 months remaining)
Lawnmower- $74 per mo ( 1/2 mo remaining)
Washer and Dryer- $50 per mo ( 4 months to land lord for washer and dryer)
Car insurance- $35.27 every month (or $190 for 6 mo, Liability Only)
Gas-$50-80 mo ( $10 per week to get back and forth to work $10 per trip to leather wholesaler for Joe)
Groceries-$250 something ( fs and wic )
Eating out- Yeah at times to much especially if we have a busy day running errons ect and we will go out if that is following me working the night before getting off at 7am.

We don't have Cable, Internet or Landline.
Totals between $1280-1335

After the next 4 mos. $1045-1100

I forgot $13 for pet food for 3 animals per month high quality to reduce Vet bills in the long run.

Well we're currently in the process of getting rid of one bill. Ds1 plays sax and that's almost $50 a month being put on credit card (I pay the 50 plus what i would normally pay). I have been on Ebay and bid on one - right now at 150. I figure if I can get one for 200 or less that that will save us this monthly charge.

I really don't know how I use to live on about $1200 a month when it was just me and ds1.
Here's what I would cut if times got tough:
cable - we only have 13 channels for $10 a month - so this would probably be one of the last things since it wouldn't save us much.
internet - I would only do this if it was a choice between it and food on the table. I use internet right now for internet classes and dh is also taking classes. Plus I pay all our bills online. This is $40 a month
Eating out - this could be slashed. If I went to the store alone we wouldn't be spending anything on eating out.
Clearance clothes for kids - I buy clothes for kids in bigger sizes at outrageously cheap prizes. I could stop doing this if need be. But as I tell dh - buy it now for a buck or two or $10+ when they need it?
Cut down on stockpile - I could stop buying when I have coupons and stuff is on sale. Only buy what I absolutely need for the week. But I think I would still stockpile a little if at all possible. I save SO much on diapers, wipes, food, etc by doing this.
Not buy papertowels, wet jet pads
dh could cut down / stop buying coffee at Dunkin and other places. He probably does this about 2-3 times a week. Some times he is better at not doing this but the last week he's been bad. We found a coffee he likes that is about $4 for 12 ounces ($2 cheaper than wally world) - 8 o'clock coffee

We would not get rid of cell phones because we do not have a home phone and for 2 phones it's only $75. There's probably a lot more that I can't think of right now.

We don't have cable so that wouldn't help us.

I'd cut our internet down from highspeed to the DSL lite, I think that would save us around $30 (but I let DH keep the highspeed if I could get rid of cable last time).

I would cut out the amount of video games we rent. DH usually gets around 2 a week (with coupons) but I would limit it to 2 a month.

The only other thing we could really do is cut the groceries then.

We could go to one cell phone(we have three 100.00), cut out cable (would be over 50.00), take the truck off insurance (45.00), quit paying DH mom(300.00), total of about almost 500.00 each month. Believe me we habve been thinking of this for quite awhile. That would leave us with about 1650 a month in bills not including food/gas and the like.

Hmm
get rid of :
cable ($14/mo)
landline($25/mo)
internet($30/mo)
groceries-(could cut $50/mo?)
cut sport for kids(depends on season $10/mo)
decrease overpayment on mortgate ($200/mo)
buy lower quality pet food ($10/mo)

Nothing else comes to mind. We don't buy or rent movies. We use the library for movies, books and magazines. I'm sure we could cut our driving some. I guess I could cut as far as I had to and start selling things if need be.

Well we could cut out cable, cell phones, internet, eating out all the things mentioned here.

We could also sell dh's motorcycle if we needed money that badly

I could get rid of:
~high-speed internet and cable for three t.v.s
~cell phones
~church tithe
~newspaper subscription
~netflix
~gym
~dance

$575!

Oh i thought of a few more...Right now my hair colour is pink. Its wicked cool, but costs about $30 a month for upkeep, I could just let it fade, dye it back to my natural colour and end the dyeing hair thing. Also, I could sell some of my books. That would be a last resort because I love my book collection. Actually I would rather sell some of my guitars or my ipod first (the ipod i got used, for sale...lol, they don't even make minis anymore!).

Bare Bones living we could cut quite a bit.
Cable could go, phone service to a minimum, internet service to minimum, groceries, (could be eating oatmeal every morning), no eating out, gasoline - I live in a small city a grocery store, bank, tj max and a dollar store is all with in 3 blocks from here. I would need one of those bag lady carts. I rarely freeze but I could turn the heat down. Lets see, vacations would be eliminated, gifts of any kind would be hand made. Entertainment would be hikes and card/board games. Trips to the library would be weekly for books and dvd's. No kids here though, and the library mostly has kid movies. A rain barrell installed under my down spouts for my small garden this summer. In fact we could cut down a few of my maple trees to let light into my yard, we could then grow a larger garden and start canning our own veggies. Navy showers for all, free cycle for stuff, rags saved for quilts, old towels could be cut up and made into wash cloths. No lights, I would turn all those old candles into new candles and burn them while watching tv. We could go quite some time with no clothing purchases what so ever. I am sure there is a lot more we could do, I just can't think of it now.

How could I ever miss it. No paper products with the exception of toilet paper. I am working on this one we are paper product pigs. We recycle like fiends but will use paper like no tomorrow.

I have a bundled internet, phone and cable package for $100 a month. Work pays for the phone and internet (yes, I am lucky!!!) I could drop the cable part when it is up for renewal in May. ($33)

I can cut out entertainment budget which is $100 a month (down from $150!). ($50)

I think we could cut back school lunches from twice a week for each dd to buy to once a week. ($16)

DH and I get $10 a week allowance. I could go to $5 a week. ($20)

Clothes budget. I give DD's $150 twice a year to shop. I can cut to $100 each. ($200 a year)

Min. payment on cc is $95 but I am paying $200-300 a month.

Cell phones are $137 a month for 4 phones. I just got it in Aug. so I don't think it would be worthwhile to cancel due to fees.

Hmmm. Not much else. May have to do this come summer, anyhow! That is about $230 a month.

I could cancel the cell phone but with the fees I don't think it would be worth it. Usually around 75 a month though.
House Phone is around 20 a month. I could potentially cancel that and just use my cell phone but my cell rarely works in my house so I wouldn't want to do that. Would save 20. though
I don't have cable but I do have internet obviously. Cheapest dsl the phone company offers which after fees is around 50.- Never plan on doing so but I could go back to 15.- a month dial up.
17ish( I think?) for Netflix. I could give that up. I debated between getting cable or netflix and netflix was cheaper by quite a bit so that's what I went with.

I will cut back on eating out & groceries.
I already cut back on getting my nails done, which was about $40 p/month. I won't cut back forever, though, maybe for Valentine's, I'll get them done again. Saved about $80 so far. Another thing I'll try to cut back on is laundry.