Reducing spending

[Wingnut]

What is your biggest monthly budget area?  Other than utilities, car payment, rent/mortgage, what is the one area in your monthly budget that "hurts" the most?  Groceries?  Clothing?  Entertainment?  What do you do to try to reduce spending in that area, without spending a ton of time (i.e., not couponing as a 40 hr/week job) or making huge sacrifices?

[Guest]

Groceries without a doubt. Cooking from scratch and avoiding eating out, even pizza and fast food, is the best way to bring it down. It's gotten harder though, since neither hubby nor I does well on a lot of starches, and unfortunately the cheapest diet is a starchy diet. 

[Bini]

I think our biggest monthly budget area is Costco. It's amazing how much money you drop there stocking up on supplies, but we always go in with a list in hand, so it isn't mindless shopping. Still doesn't change that checkout can be sticker shock sometimes. The idea though, is that stocking up and buying groceries, will help encourage us to eat more healthy at home versus eating out a lot.

[omegaseamaster75]

Food no doubt

[beefche]

We have the same problem as Eowyn.  Since I found out that I'm losing my job, we are trying to be better about not eating out as much and cooking at home more.  My problem is that it's difficult to feel like cooking after working a full day (oftentimes with overtime) and Dravin's schedule is such that he oftentimes doesn't have access to a fridge or microwave.  

 

Some things that I'm doing to reduce our spending is:  plan meals with sales in mind; cook a couple of meals on the weekend, shop with the future in mind (stock up on non-perishables when on sale, etc), make sure to take the leftovers in to work (for me) or eat them at dinner, just stop eating out so much (I only get lunch out about once every 2 wks or so).   

 

It's hard to cut the spending in groceries...food prices are so high and we don't want to live on rice and beans alone.

[classylady]

Grocery is the biggest one.  The next one for us is gas for the pickup.  It's our only vehicle and only gets 11 to 12 miles to the gallon.  We usually use a tank of gas a week, sometimes more, sometimes less.  It's usually over $80 to fill the tank.  Ugh!  I'd love to get a small economy car, but so far, no extra money to get one.

[Backroads]

Food as well. We can stick to it, but I rather think we could tighten it.