Convenience food and my cellphone. Both are unfortunately directly related to my job. I "justify" the $140/mo cellphone bill because it is my only internet (I don't have internet or TV at home, which made life at work very difficult) and I share the plan with 2 family members. It is useful for work: map apps, Googling medications, taking pictures of license plates and car crashes - sounds morbid, but I'm an EMT so I have to be able to remember the details for legal and medical reports - and being able to check for overtime shifts. None of which is possible with our on-board computers because they're so slow and/or on lock down.
Because I literally spend 12+hrs/day in an ambulance (we can't go back to base, so we just cruise street corners...resist analogies about other ladies who work the night shift on street corners), everything has to be portable. I'm still amazed at how awesome the internet is on a full sized computer.
Food? Portability and convenience. Like I said, 12 hrs a day (or night, as it were) in a truck. It's a sad story. I find myself buying pizza slices and bagels when I already have whole grain rice in my lunch bin. I have made a meal out of M&Ms and chips before on a busy day. Add to that caffeine consumption, which could be >$5/shift (x7shifts/14days) for say...a soda, a coffee and a NOS. YIKES. Spaced out over 12 hrs on the night shift doesn't seeeeeem bad, but it really really is. That's on a particularly Anti-mustachian day, though, which is luckily fewer and farther between these days. The $1.25 microwave rice or similarly priced microwave frozen pasta and veggies are so delicious and convenient - and high in sodium, dammit - and I'm so tired....sigh. It would take up to 25X as much time to make that food for half the price. Same thing happens when my Handsome Boyfriend gets home and neither of us can decide what we want to eat - pizza shop is just around the corner, right?
Luckily, spring is creeping up so the garden will be going in soon, cutting down the food bill with careful planning. Phone can't go away until I get a different job or just quit working outright. What a day that would be. Once I save up enough money for a bicycle, the car will only be used once/wk until fall (when it becomes dangerous to ride in the ever earlier darkness).