Don't let yourself say "there's no way I could live on that". Not without an honest reassessment.
And if you really can't see how to reduce, that's where case studies come in.
This. Even when I am completely blown away by someone's budget, I look at it from a learning standpoint. Not necessarily to compare, but see if maybe there is something that I could be doing that I hadn't thought of (like making my own laundry detergent). So even if someone does fudge their numbers ... *ahem*
I am secretly a crazy spendypants. I just pretend I live frugally because I desperately crave positive affirmation from strangers on the internet.
...I still get value from it, just based on my approach. And that helps get over the comparison issues:
Why? Are you happy with your spending in that area? Do you need to compare yourself to someone else?
[...] my paycheck goes into gnucash as gross and I put all my various expenses in as expenses. [...]
I do the same thing. I used to record just the net income, but it was pretty enlightening when I started adding everything from my paycheck (including taxes, HSA and 401(k) contributions, etc). I put my gross paycheck as income, and split the transaction. The reports I generated shined a crazy light on where some additional money was going (fucking taxes...higher than I thought). I highly suggest GnuCash for this part of it.
I've been going over why my wife and I struggle to save. It seems each month inspite of my best efforts that our bank account falls to zero. I finally realized [...] much of it is small seemingly insignificant choices.
I've been there. I had a thought that it would be nice to have an alert from mint when I spend
under $20 in a single transaction, because I've always been pretty good at researching large purchases, but the little things get me.