"A great way to save money is to have too much social anxiety to go out and do things."
Saw that on a meme floating around on Facebook. DH and I are both introverts and have very few people we choose to hang out with regularly, which helps keep any party-like spending low.
I've come to believe that the most important categories to focus frugal efforts on are housing, transportation, and food (and number of children, for us at least).
We have a very short commute from a 1300-sq-ft townhouse (which albeit we still do by car (but which at least is definitely not a Silverado)) but it gives us far more zoning out time (and home-cooking time, and quality play time) at home than most of our peers who despite being in the DC area seem to equate townhouse living with 3rd-world slum squatter huts... and therefore deliberately chose to have a minimum 45-minute commute from places we consider weekend getaway destinations in order to have their McMansions (from which they escape to further destinations on weekends).
DH and I also carpool in together and brown-bag all our weekday breakfasts, lunch, and coffee while most of our peers go down to the office food court for all of that every day.
And since we have a very restless, handful-and-a-half, night-owl of a toddler, all attempts to persuade us to have a second kid "just cause" continue to fall on deaf ears. I'm also loathe to sign myself or my kiddo up for any commitments like lessons on evenings and weekends (even though I would be interested in learning Judo) because well that would still eat up more down time (and cash) than I'd care to give up.
On the flip side we wimp out on lots of things too - besides driving most places, still also use the dryer, outsource home repairs, and always keep Costco cheese pizzas in the freezer... Also have three cats (as we were originally leaning toward no kids at all) but once they start passing away in the mid- to semi-distant future, I think I'll definitely be ready to take a break from pets...
It's also become easier for both of us to resist the call of alcohol, partly to save on calories, and partly cause we're both feeling old and tired lately and even a small amount of alcohol feels very unhelpful the next day.
"Strategically misbehave"... great way to put it.