Well, you know what I'm going to hit:
Groceries- 150
Restaurants- 100
Fast food- 50
Alcohol- 80
Coffee- 20
Nobody is asking you to be a monk, just to be realistic about your ability to go out. You go out so much that 1-2 nights a week would be too hard? Um, that's a lot.
Why is coffee so expensive? Is this coffee out or coffee at home? (I guess if you drink a LOT of coffee, this could all be at home).
Alcohol seems a bit high. If you limit your drinking to "out" only, and limit it to 1-2 drinks per week, you can cut that down. Or conversely, drink at home and don't drink "out".
Restaurants AND fast food?
Can you implement a supper club instead of going out so much? That's what one of our friends did in grad school (my husband was in grad school and so was his friend who started it).
Can you go out with your friends and not eat or drink? Eat first, and then just get a snack? Find other ways to socialize that doesn't involve eating out? Sports, etc.
What is your charity for?
I do go out a lot (when I say go out, I mean any activity when I'm not at home). For example, this past week was: Dec 31- NYE party at bar, Jan 1-happy hour at brewery, Jan 2- make dinner and have game night at friend's place, Jan 3- bar to watch football game with friends, Jan 4- make brunch at home with some friends, Jan 5- girls night in to watch the Bachelor. Granted, I was on vacation most of that time, so I normally don't have plans 100% of the time.
My friends and I have dinner and game night once a month, a book club night in once a month, and I have a least one girls movie night in once a month, so I have activities that allow me to stay in. In addition to that, I go to happy hour with other students or my coworkers twice a month, play trivia at a bar 1-2 times a month, go to a brewery once a month, and go to brunch maybe once a month. I'm going to really try to cut back on the eating out and maybe it would be a good idea to give myself a 2 drink max when out.
I drink a ton of coffee/tea, on average 6 cups a day. Most of it is free at work, but I usually go to Starbucks about twice a week.
Charity for a nonprofit I work with and is a very important cause to me.
What do you guys think? I know my food budget is probably throwing some of you into fits of rage. My biggest issue is that I go out a decent amount with my friends, so that adds up. I've been trying to cut back on going out to 1-2 nights per week, but even that is hard (I can only sit on my couch, drink wine, and read/watch Netflix alone so much). Any suggestions are welcome and very much appreciated. Seeing all the posts from people younger than me with 100k in savings is making me feel like I've done nothing to secure my future and I'm determined to make that change.
I think you're in a pretty bad shape financially. Your job is guaranteed to end and your emergency fund will support you for less than one month. Have you thought about what an emergency looks like? For you it is like finding out your adviser has been falsifying data for years and you are not going to get your PhD. Or graduating in a bad hiring year when and not being able to find a post doc. If you're lucky you can get adjunct work, but if that happens you'll be adding medical insurance to your budget.
I suspect that you haven't met a lot of people in those situations; I'm a secondary teacher, I've met plenty of them. The two examples I gave you are from people who were each once in their 4th year of a STEM PhD.
There's plenty of fat to cut in your budget, I assume you know what it is. My advice is to put all of your discretionary spending (I see $495) into one bucket and decide the max you'll willing to let it be, maybe $5 per day. It might be easier to cut out the fast food if you know that you can go out with friends three times a week because you packed a sandwich. If you do blow the whole budget, try inviting your friends over for a game night, you might even find that entertainment can be free.
I'm guaranteed my job until I finish my PhD due to departmental policies, so even if something horrible happened to my advisor, I would still be fine. By the time I graduate, based on my current budget, I would have ~$4000 in a non-retirement fund that I could utilize for any unforeseen circumstances.
I think it's a good idea to cut out the fast food. Most of that is eating in hospital cafeteria during an unanticipated late night at work. Maybe it would be beneficial to have an extra meal stored in my work fridge for those situations. I need to work on the restaurant spending. I'm going to try to suggest more nights in. We always have a blast when we make dinner and have game nights, so I can push to do it more.