masterofnone, you actually sound very capable!
I am actually not doing very much economizing. My wife and I have been spending quite a bit in restaurants lately, in fact.
We don’t have a car, so gas isn’t an issue. But we take a lot of cabs and they just smacked an extra $1 per ride on taxi fares here in Chicago.
We also don’t have kids, which helps immensely on the money front. I guess I haven’t been buying much clothing lately, but I don’t really do a ton of that anyway.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging, by the way. Just answering the topic question.
And this is my first post here.
Yeah, I know a little about everything - Just enough to get me in trouble! 
Welcome, Pranky! 
We have our DSL through our phone company, and we’re paying a good deal less than that, according to the item for it on our bill. When we first started with DSL, they charged us about $40 per month, but since then it has dropped to the low 20’s.
However, that’s not to say that the phone company isn’t getting it out of us in some other way.
I don’t have a land line, but pay about $50 a month for my cell phone service (AT&T, which I switched to on Black Friday after horrible reception and dropped calls with Verizon).
I don’t have cable TV, but got a good deal on high-speed Internet through the cable company, which I actually NEED for school and work. The first six months were $30 per month, and after that they raised it to $45 a month. I don’t think that is awful. I work very late into the night so I wouldn’t have time to sit in front of the TV anyway, and most shows worth watching can be seen on the networks’ websites or other sites like http://www.hulu.com .
I also wait for Blockbuster Online and Netflix to advertise monthly deals and free specials, and rejoin and quit as needed. When I’m enrolled in either, I turn DVDs around as quickly as possibly to get my money’s worth (even if it’s during a free period). We also have two second-run movie theaters around here, so I can often wait a month or two and catch recent movies for $2, still getting that “big screen experience” I like so much.
I’ve mostly quit buying DVDs and CDs (although there are a few upcoming CDs I “must” own, like Portishead and Scarlett Johansson), as well as comic books, which I used to love and collect with regularity. I may buy a few trade paperbacks (collected editions of previously-published comics) during the year, but only when they’re on sale for 30% or more off the cover prices. I can get most TPBs I want to read via inter-library loans, as well as “regular” books. I’m constantly selling my own books and media on Amazon Marketplace as well as collectibles on eBay, and luckily I move more things out than I bring in.
I always stock up on grocery staples during good sales – one-pound boxes of dry pasta at 2/$1 (as opposed to the regular $1 each), jars of Classico pasta sauce (the good stuff) when they are buy one/get one free, boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of breasts (tastier and usually cheaper), store brand yogurt and other prepared foods, meats to freeze when they go on sale, and so forth. I bring sandwiches or leftovers for work lunches to avoid eating out, although restaurant meals are probably my biggest luxuries these days. I have such a bizarre work schedule that sometimes I come home and have no energy to cook, or I’m too hungry to bother. And dammit, sometimes you have to treat yourself in some small ways. I enjoy a good meal, and sometimes leaving it to professionals after a long, hard day is enough to make my whole week.
Luckily I drive a small, fuel-efficient car (1996 Honda Civic hatchback, getting ready to hit 150,000 miles), and I only work at my day job 3-4 days a week. I’m graduating with my Master’s degree this weekend and I’ve been searching for newer, more stable jobs pretty heavily over the last few months, so hopefully I’ll be in more comfortable financial shape sooner rather than later. Of course, that may involve leaving Florida for parts unknown, due to the budget cuts and hiring freezes affecting my field around the state.
Add some chunked summer sausage to this and you have a very filling main dish. Serve with a sald and you are GTG.
Around here we’ve drastically cut back on beer ( :eek: ), and we make sun tea every day during the summer instead of swilling diet soda. Dining out got cut back to once a week. We are also going to ebay a bunch of the stuff around here this summer, both to add a little cash to the kitty as well as to declutter the place a bit. Getting a scooter to commute to school on is moving up the list rapidly as gas prices skyrocket. But I refuse to economize on bourbon! I’d rather be sober.
Agreed, yummy!
That stuff has gotten outrageous, IMO. $30 for Hubby’s brand. (What size? I dunno, it has a handle).
That makes me sad for my '90 Civic Wagon (it’s broken ATM). It gets 35 mpg.
Lemme see…
Driving my 5 year old econo-truck one more year
Shopping at Aldi once a month for stock up stuff
Not eating out
Not traveling much for pleasure 
Using the library more, shopping for books less
Getting a house blend with room for cream at the coffee shop instead of a latte
Carrying a thermos of iced tea to work instead of soda
Looking for a new apartment closer than my 32 mile each way commute
Doing pedicures with friends instead of paying to have them done
Reading newspapers and magazines online instead of hardcopy
Buying the spring additions to my wardrobe at Goodwill
Using the little red wagon for the half mile grocery store run at least once a month
Cooking from scratch more
Staying out of craft and hobby stores
I can at least feel better that some of these things contribute less to the decline of the environment…that’s good, right?
I miswrote. I meant to write £5 a month. If I went with the primary supplier (BT) I’d pay £17 a month, but I’d have to have a landline too, that I’d never use, for £11 a month as well.
The guy downstairs pays £11 a month to a secondary supplier for 1 gig only, plus £1.50 for every gig over 1. So far I haven’t caused him to go over his limit - or the ISP doesn’t really measure it.
Food here is getting more expensive, but there’s bugger all we can do about it except switch to cheaper brands.
I’ve tried taking lunches to work, but we don’t have a microwave so I can’t heat them up, and there’s a limit to how many Tinned Fish Sandwiches I can eat each week.
We don’t have Austar, or go out to the movies much or anything either. I’m trying to earn more money through my writing work, but as the writers here will know, it’s great when you get the cheque in the mail but it can be months between sending off a piece and being able to put that cheque in the bank…
We’re eating in more. This includes my husband taking his lunch and ice tea to work, instead of eating out. I’m also using fewer kits and such to make meals. I figured out some decades ago that most Hamburger Helpers are really just some sort of sauce and a starch, which I can cook up myself just about as easily. We’re drinking Kool-Aid and/or ice tea now, instead of soda. My husband was the real soda fiend, but I liked a can now and then too.
We’ve planted some veggies and herbs and strawberries this year. I’m trying to convince my husband that he should pick up some of the dead tree branches that everyone set out and make a compost bin out of them. I’m also going to try to make sure that bin has mostly garden scraps in it, not leftover food.
I’m trying VERY HARD to finish up my current craft projects. I adore buying new craft supplies, but really, I probably have enough to last me the rest of my life.
I found a thrift shop that helps a good cause, and I’m carefully buying stuff there.
I’m keeping a list of stuff we need to get when we can find a good deal on it.
I always feel like there is steel in these stores and I am a magnet. Book stores of all varieties, too.
Me too, and I was alarmed to see how much sodium those things contain!
I’ve cut my booze consumption, from about 18 oz/day to 2-3!
I’ve already ecnonmized about as much as I can. I’m Mr. Efficiency.
-Tracfone. $20 phone, $30 double minutes for life card. Now I just buy a $20 60-minute card every 3 months and get 120 minutes of talk time. So that works out to about $7 a month. I don’t use my cell much.
-No cable or satellite. I have an HDTV, but I use TivoHD at ~$12 a month to record stuff. With the subchannels I probably get about 20 channels, and I’m 40 miles from the nearest city. Digital picture quality over an antenna is the best possible HD picture, not as compressed as cable or satellite.
-Reuse napkins. I get lunch at Subway on my way to work, and they usually give me a wad of napkins. I save the extras and take them home. Small thing, but why throw away perfectly good unused napkins?
-Shop online. Spend $75 and you get free 2-day shipping for a year at Amazon.com. Now I can buy anything Amazon carries for a good price and no taxes or shipping charges. I’ve even ordered stuff like deodorant and toothpaste from them.
-Do you own oil changes. Oil changes are up to $40 or so around here.
-If you get carryout food, don’t buy fries and drinks. I just keep a 2-liter soda at work, or drink water. And don’t buy $1.49 20-ounce sodas when you can get a 2-liter for 99 cents.
-Stock up on non-perishable stuff that’s on sale. TP, paper towels, laundry detergent. If you have room to store it, stock up. Saves you trips to the store too, which saves gas.
-Drive carefully, don’t slam on the brakes or floor it every time you accelerate. Anticipate stops and just drift up to them. Drive like there’s a raw egg on the gas pedal. I still floor it sometimes, you gotta live a little, especially with a turbo.
-Don’t burn lights that don’t need to be on. If you’re leaving the room for 5 minutes, turn the light off. Don’t leave anything plugged in that doesn’t need to be plugged in, including stuff like wall chargers.
-Open blinds/curtains in the winter to let the sun in, free heat! Close blinds/curtains to block direct sunlight.
I could go on, enough for now.