Can you cut $1,000 from your monthly spending?

I don't think we could cut $1,000 out of our budget, but we could realistically cut it a bit. I'd start with the "luxury" crap..
T.V/Phone/Internet - $110 - drop to just internet, as we work form home some times (so reduced to $50)
my cell phone - $50 (she has a cell paid for through work)

The majority of our expenses go to (in descending order)
Mortgage - we pay ahead so we could reduce our payment to increase savings, but that's robbing Peter to pay Paul
Student Loans - again we pay ahead
food - could adjust to eat less expensive items more often
electric - this would go down if we got rid of TV
car loan

I suppose we could sell my car and share hers (one drives and drops) but once we have kids that would be a super PITA.

We already burn wood as our sole source of heat, I could hunt more, but she won't eat any of it - so that really just covers me.

There are foods we eat that we could stop eating (goat cheese for one).

Without reducing our mortgage and student loan payments, we could realistically slice $200-$300 a month simply by dropping some luxury items and changing our eating habits. My budget for hobby stuff (which brewing is) is $300 a year, so if I want to spend more than that it comes from selling other hobby stuff.. the system is fairly circular.

If I fired the "maid" she'd take half my crap; much like if she fired the "landscaper" he'd take half her crap. (I'm the landscaper and she's the maid in this scenario; it's a joke people).

i could easily cut ~$2k a month from my budget by donating my kids to charity.

I could probably get a tax break on that too.

The average income in this country is about $32,000 a year. To me this means about half of the folks would have trouble paying for the basics let alone cutting $1,000 out their budgets. Especially if they were the only wage earner in the family.
If I cut out cable TV, cell phone, internet = $318 per month. This is a rediculous amount of money.
Two adults earning minimum wage = $2,552 per month. This is a rediculous wage for 2 full-time employees.
You can only cut expenses if you have the luxury of non-essential expenses.

motobrewer said:

i could easily cut ~$2k a month from my budget by donating my kids to charity.

I could probably get a tax break on that too.

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Haha! +1.... wish I could have figured that one out about 8 years ago. The damage has already been done as mine are grown! Looking forward to Grand Babies though..... I anticipate spending another fortune spoiling them!!!!

Brewtah said:

The average income in this country is about $32,000 a year. To me this means about half of the folks would have trouble paying for the basics let alone cutting $1,000 out their budgets. Especially if they were the only wage earner in the family.
If I cut out cable TV, cell phone, internet = $318 per month. This is a rediculous amount of money.
Two adults earning minimum wage = $2,552 per month. This is a rediculous wage for 2 full-time employees.
You can only cut expenses if you have the luxury of non-essential expenses.

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I agree with you; minimum wage in CT is 8.25/hr (goes up to 8.70 in January) - cost of living in CT is roughly 31% higher than the average cost of living in the rest of the country; it's got to be ridiculously tough to make it on minimum wage for just the basics (food & shelter) throw health care into that mix (legally required now) and I can see someone being pretty screwed.

Every time I look at my monthly expenses I'm flabbergasted at how much money I spend every month. I always think wow "if I didn't have these student loans" but then I wouldn't be living where I am and getting paid what I am.

Every time income vs. expenses comes up, I'm reminded of a ex-friend of mine; she is a high school science teacher outside of Boston, MA; she was complaining to me about how she doesn't have enough money and has a bunch of credit card debt and how she is underpaid as a teacher and how she needs to get out of debt.

I felt bad for her so I started trying to help her go through her budget and see where cuts could be made.

Turns out she made as much money as I did, so she wasn't an underpaid teacher; and she doesn't have any student loans because her mom paid for college.
She then flat-out refused to give up or reduce her TV, internet, and smartphone plans, she also refused to stop going out four nights a week because "she needed that break from all the crap".
She didn't want to leave her $1,200 a month two bedroom apartment for something smaller or get a roommate because she needed her space and privacy; yes a two bedroom apartment for one person with a cat.

The takeaway from this for me was there is a big difference between "want" and "need" and everyone has their own view for each item.
I want to eat rib-eye steak, but I need to eat.. so rice and beans are fine by me if I can't afford steak.

Probably not living in the Midwest, where cost of living is less.

But like the article says, cut the cable, smartphone, and things like that would shave a few hundred a month off.

We are on a rather tight budget, so the only way we could knock out $1000/month would be for my wife to cancel her Master's program. Got a phone call from a furnance company about how a new furnance could save me thousands of dollars a year. I told hm we use less than $700 worth of natural gas a year, so I'd definitely be interested in the additional income.