Clive,
I know where you are coming from, im not complaining about "cutting back" by any means.
"Scaling back" has been something i have needed, and wanted to do for a very long time.
Let me give you the following examples:
1. reusing glass containers and Jars - more of an environmental thing than an economics thing
2. Disconnecting our dish network... well, of course having such a thing is a luxury... however for a long time it has been a luxury item i could afford, and it still is a luxury item i can afford. however, my wife and i have a large shelf in our living room right by the TV. upon this shelf rests hundreds of movies DVDs, some box sets of our favorite TV shows, and at least a dozen board games nad puzzles.
and nothing on the shelf i just mentioned hardly ever gets used... at all.
dish network was a leach on my monthly finances, and i felt that getting rid of it was the responsible thing to do.
3. Discontinuance of the bottled water service delivery. some months ago my wife - in her infinite wisdom - realized that we were going through an awful lot of gallon jugs of water per month from the grocery store. (our city water is often quite terrible and tastes like chemicals) she pointed out that her dad had an old water cooler that he was not using and we could actually save about $10 per month by setting up and getting large 5 gallon tower jugs delivered to the house. - seemed like a good idea at the time, but what you have to consider is that installing a "pur water filter" on the tap - costs about $60 and you pretty much have it as long as you have a tap... thus it was decided that the time had come to discontinue the bottled water delivery.
4. basic phone service issue... we had only used our phone service because a land line was required by dish network for some sort of verification of our services monthly. so... we were paying about $20 per month for a service that was NEVER being used by us personally. In fact for over 3 years now i have not had a phone plugged into any land line in the entire house. This has worked out to 20/month for a service we were never using.
5. Credit cards and bank cards are trouble... they enable you to have what you want right now by causing you to pay more for it over time. when you sit and think about it that is the most rediculous thing! 4 years ago we developed a 5 year plan to pay off all debts - we have succeded in that plan one year ahead of schedule. The bank cards on the other hand... big difference. I have determiend that far too much money was being spent on the little things we could do without. for example, my wife will not hesitate to buy fast food with her bank card when she does not have $5 on hand (something i despise doing) because of this... we were averaging $50 a month on fast food purchases alone on the bank card!!!
not only did this cause me to become quite angry, but there were several times just before pay day and after our account had been nearly cleaned out by bills that she would buy $7 worth of crap from McDonalds on the bank card... and as a result cause an overdraft fee of $28 to be posted against the account!!!!
i said
"Honey... my God!!! you have just paid $35 for a cheeseburger at McDonalds because of this nonsense!!"
i could think of a half dozen similar examples
thus - bank cards have been eliminated from our budget.
6. through 10. well this is just sensible any time of the year regardless of the economy.