From all I read with your posts, sounds like its an issue with the way you think about certain types of spending.
e.g. laundry detergent is expensive so must save $$ by making my own.
but then we have:
I NEED unlimited data and am OK spending $200/month on this so we have the convenience of using data whenever and wherever.
We all have our things we're willing to spend more on. What I take away from MMM is that we need to make a conscious choice on what that is. And continually reevaluate it. For me, I am fine saving $$ on daily life so I have more $$ for vacations and for my FIRE goal. Your choices will be unique to you and your family. That said, the reason everyone is yelling about your cellphone bill is because there is NO REASON to spend $200/mo on your cellphone. As you've been finding out, that is an insane bill.
What I really like about MMM is that folks here help me take a fresh look at my expenses. Not a conventional "this is what normal people do" look. I started cycling to work this summer. It only saves me about $30 or so a month in gas, which is rather negligible, but it really wasn't as hard as I thought (especially figuring out work clothes, etc), and it has health benefits too. More importantly (to me), it helps me to think of my bike as my main mode of transport and my car as an alternate. That's radical and will eventually pay off in much larger savings down the road.
And those once-in-a-long-while expenses? When planning out your budget, I highly recommend making a regular line item for this. I budgeted about $200/mo for "things I don't remember" and after some months, I decided to also add extra money to it. That's AFTER I budgeted for birthday/Christmas presents, car repairs, home repairs, etc. I started my budget a year ago and despite always being what I considered reasonably frugal, there were a lot of one-off things I really had never thought about or considered.