Just starting. How do I kill some of my unecasary expenses?

[Burghardt]

^what he said.

Basically plan ahead and do the (not very hard) work if you want to save money. Exercise some self control and avoid buying take out all the time.

Maybe reframe it so it's not about depriving yourself?
 
You'll have to see the real value in doing this in order to get motivated, so dig deep and decide if saving money, getting out of debt, learning more self-sufficient skills (like cooking tasty food, cooking in bulk, grocery shopping for adults, etc), getting healthy/losing weight is enough of an incentive to counteract the laziness/apathy that causes you to seek out the easy, spendy stuff.

I'm not one of those people that says never go out to eat, but it should be for a special occasion or something - date night, anniversary, birthday - not something you do every day, let alone every meal every day.

Suggestions for food/recipe blogs for cheap but super tasty recipes:

www.budgetbytes.com
www.epicurious.com
www.seriouseats.com
http://www.hellobee.com/2014/02/06/10-make-ahead-freezer-breakfasts/

not my thread but i just wanted to say thank you for those links. I have the buttermilk coffee cake from budgetbytes in the oven right now, using up some banana and apple in place of the blueberries (outrageously expensive in Ger)

my goto for simple and tasty cooking so far has been
http://thestonesoup.com/blog/
Anyone who feels cooking is too much of a hassle may want to risk a glance at the 5 ingredient recipes (+seasoning, oil)

[With This Herring]

Well done Truman!
Have you considered paying your credit card that $25 at the end of every day you don't spend it? You can build a simple spreadsheet that shows your progress. If your credit card company won't let you pay daily, you can open a new savings account and just stash the amounts in there, then make much larger payments every month. I know I'm a spreadsheet nerd, so knowing I've got a daily entry to make towards my debt really helps me rein in my spending.

The problem is I don't actually have that extra $25 each day. It just means I wont go into negative balance on my spending account like I usually do leading up to the next pay day.

Its like smoking. According to my app Ive saved over $5300 since I quit. I don't have that money its just money I haven't spent from credit cards. My first goal is to actually make it to the next pay day without being in a negative balance.

if i wanted some advice on doing a budget and what i should pay off etc should i post all my income and expenses in a seperate post?

Yes, you should post your income and expenses and a lot more information as well.  There's actually a whole guide to get your post written well the first time:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/how-to-write-a-'case-study'-topic/

Once you have it written, please post it to the "Ask a Mustachian" section:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/

The guide has pretty detailed instructions, so be prepared to spend some time on this.  Giving full background will really help the people trying to help you.  If you miss some of the basic parts, you are going to get the same questions repeatedly.

[truman47]

Thanks "With This Herring", I will get working on my case study and post it once done. Today I did a spreadsheet of all my expenses per week that I could easily kill and i was absolutely shocked when I saw how much I spend.  $500 a month just on food and coffee at work that i could bring from home, then $288 a month on beer which i brew my own and usually have a few kegs full at any one time.
And another $176 on coffee and brekky for the missus and I when I could easily cook.

For a grand total of $964 a month wasted that I could easily cut down to around $150 a month and pump the rest into my credit card balances.  I must admit Im very shocked.

                             Day   Week   Month
Breakfast (work)   $7.50   $37.50   $150.00
Morning Tea (work)   $10.00   $50.00   $200.00
lunch (work)           $7.50   $37.50   $150.00
Sub total           $25.00   $125.00   $500.00
         
beer (5-6 days)   $12.00   $72.00   $288.00
weekend brekky (2 days)   $22.00   $44.00   $176.00
Sub total   $34.00   $116.00   $464.00
         
TOTAL   $59.00   $241.00   $964.00

[Monkey Uncle]

Thanks "With This Herring", I will get working on my case study and post it once done. Today I did a spreadsheet of all my expenses per week that I could easily kill and i was absolutely shocked when I saw how much I spend.  $500 a month just on food and coffee at work that i could bring from home, then $288 a month on beer which i brew my own and usually have a few kegs full at any one time.
And another $176 on coffee and brekky for the missus and I when I could easily cook.

For a grand total of $964 a month wasted that I could easily cut down to around $150 a month and pump the rest into my credit card balances.  I must admit Im very shocked.

                             Day   Week   Month
Breakfast (work)   $7.50   $37.50   $150.00
Morning Tea (work)   $10.00   $50.00   $200.00
lunch (work)           $7.50   $37.50   $150.00
Sub total           $25.00   $125.00   $500.00
         
beer (5-6 days)   $12.00   $72.00   $288.00
weekend brekky (2 days)   $22.00   $44.00   $176.00
Sub total   $34.00   $116.00   $464.00
         
TOTAL   $59.00   $241.00   $964.00

Welcome to the spreadsheet geek brigade!  This is the satisfying part of the MMM programme - identifying the low hanging fruit and picking it.  Savor this moment and remember it the next time you are tempted to buy convenience food.

[CodAlmighty]

Like many I am a huge foodie, and although I religiously bring my lunch to work every day, every now and then I slip and go through stages where I will eat out more times than I should in a given week. I find that the best way to get back on the wagon is to concentrate on my fitness. I can't stand the gym, so I do other things such as running, pushups, I practise a martial art, and I do home workouts (thousands on YouTube that require very little equipment). When I'm being very active I only enjoy food that I know is fuelling my body, so I prefer to make it all from scratch at home rather than go out and eat processed food that has been prepared by someone else. You've given up smoking which is the perfect way to start.

[happy]

Welcome fellow Aussie. There are quite a few of us posting in the journals, if you wish to hang out there you'd be very welcome.

Its fantastic when one suddenly realises how much money is just going down the drain. There are a few ways to change... you can do the one habit a time if that suits you. But I found some value from doing a "no spend " challenge. Just a little game you play with yourself, and you define the rules e.g. bring/cook all you own food for a week, or a month. By going extreme for a short period, often one realises its not so hard after all, and quite a few of the changes can stick.

[truman47]

Well this week I decided to go all out and not buy any convenience food at all other than from the supermarket. And so far I've achieved that. I had to meet someone onsite yesterday and brought a coffee but other than that Ive brought all my food from home and finally managed to break free of the coffee vans grasp on me. It was a habit that I never could quite break and I owe a lot of this to you guys and this forum because reading your posts gave me the inspiration and confidence to do it.

So thanks very much.

Another thing which has made it easier is simply giving up drinking beer on weeknights. Because of this Im walking for 35-45 minutes each night and I'm buying food to prepare cheap and healthy meals and I'm making lunch for work the next day instead of just sitting on the couch eating chips after dinner and drinking beer. So my weight is also starting to decrease.

[deeshen13]

Good work Truman! Now you have your habits compounding positively which should help the inertia push into further positive habit creation!

[happy]

Yay! Go Truman! As deeshen13 says, a lot of these habits interlink, and 1 or 2 changes can create more positive momentum than you would otherwise think.

[pbkmaine]

Excellent!

[GreenSheep]

Thanks for the update! So good to hear this!

[cyndre4]

Horray!
For your own interest, you might enjoy a column for your weight in your spreadsheet. These things tend to be related!