[Ben Lahnger]

Originally Posted by Fruitbat

Ben ...

I no nothing of your personal finances, but what I do when money is really tight, is to track all my expenses for a week, and then sit down at the end of it and work out if the expense was worth it/the reason for the expense.

E.g.
Coffee - $5 (needed to stay awake, but should have bought my own from home)
Lunch - $10 (could have brought my own)
Chocolate - $2 (stress made me do it. go for a walk instead)
Petrol - $40 (needed it to get to work, will drive better, explore car pool/public transport)

And then the next week try to avoid those splurges and sometimes, I'll put the money into a moneybox or hide it somewhere in the house.. In the example above, i could have saved $17 in one day.

Sorry for telling you how to suck eggs.

Yeah, um I already make my own coffee every day. I don't eat out, I brown sack a couple of homemade sandwiches for lunch. In fact, the instant oatmeal I have for breakfast costs about $0.40 per meal, I spend less than a buck per meal for both lunch and supper. I don't have treats like pudding or other desserts. I don't live near public transport (as the last couple of days have made clear to me - taxi, bus and gas money for ex-girlfriend are costing me $18 a day because I don't have a car.)

I just cancelled netflix to save $8 a month, but that's where I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. I really am not splurging on much of anything, but thanks for the suggestions.