Me too! Ooh, I want to try:

Drop Netflix: $360
Drop landline/internet: $820
Cut vacations/trips to see parents: $2500
Cut eating out: $600
Stop running the dryer: $150
Reduce heat/air: $300
Reduce christmas: $150
Reduce barber/beauty shop: $150

that reduces it $5030 annually.


You know, it would be really hard to cut $10,000 from our budget. But, we put over $1500 monthly into savings, so I guess we already have in some ways??

If it was a Mommysaver, it would be harder, since most are already pretty frugal. But a lot of people I know could save $1000/month just by paying attention to their groceries and not eating out or going to Starbucks. They don't realize it, but if they did the numbers, that's what it would be!

For us, I guess:
Drop cable entirely=$480/year.
No cell phones=$768/year.
Sell the car on which we make payments and go back to one (paid off) car as we used to=$4800/year.
No eating out at all=$1500/year.
Pay strict attention to the grocery budget all the time=$2400/year. (I cut it from $800 to $400/month by reading Mommysavers, but whenever I relax about it at all, it goes up to $600/month easily. Or maybe that's just the rising food prices!
Consignment clothes instead of new, especially for our toddler whom we love to get clothes for and who is our big budget-buster that way, baby clothes are so tempting=$300-500/year. (We already do mostly consignment & hand-me-downs, but I crack over cute clothes too often anyway.)
Forgot about Netflix!=$168/year.
And gym=$480/year.
And photo gallery for baby photos=$90/year.

We're already over the $11k and I bet I could find a lot more. And none of those would really be "hard" on us, as in our quality of life would suffer (my DH would suffer about the car and the cable , and I would suffer about the eating out because I'm a real foodie, but honestly...we would still be perfectly happy; these are luxuries not needs).

Kind of scary when you look at it like that. Scary in the sense of: so go ahead and DO it already, cut out all those things.

Wow, we must be really cutting it close with things, because there is literally no possible way for us to cut out $10000, unless we stopped eating completely, lol. I guess that's a good thing, though, it means I'm doing well, frugal-wise!

This is all I could come up with, and I wouldn't do most of them unless I absolutely HAD to, because some (like dropping the car insurance and eating cheaply over eating nutritiously) are just unwise, and I don't think they would be worth it in the long run:

~Drop Both Car Insurances to Liability: $1200 give or take
~Drop Cell Phones: $720
~Drop Internet: $240
~No More Going out to Eat: $240
~Eat Only the Most Frugal Meals: $1000
~Not running the AC: $300 but it would be AWFUL because we usually have over 80% humidity here in the summer, and it gets hot here!

To answer Kim's post - I would just say eliminate anything that isn't a necessity. The things that you think will be hard to get along without will probably not be so bad once you get used to not having them. Also, exchange expensive activities for frugal ones - going to Chuck E Cheese versus making sandwiches and spending the day at the park..... That sort of thing. Give up expensive habits - we quit smoking a while back and now save over $2400 a year combined, and that's not to mention how much we'll save on the Dr. bills later on.

And join the Forget the Joneses Project!

__________________
Homeschooling Mom to Daniel (13 Years), Andrew (10 Years), Stephen (8 Years) and Emily (4 Years)

I'm having trouble with my list too!

Drop internet $480 (but then I'd lose my job)
Drop basic cable $348
Don't visit in-laws at Christmas or in the summer $400 (on gas)
Cancel Christmas $500 (we have very frugal Christmas')
Cancel birthdays and birthday parties $500
Cancel cell phone (only $12 emergency phone) $144

$2372 but not much of a life .. and a lose of my job which defeats the purpose.

I'm pretty aware that what we have is not a spending crisis. It's an income crisis!

__________________
Mom to dd (age 9) and ds (age 11)
blogging daily about purpose and personal identity

We just cut out private school.

We're in the same boat!!! Wouldn't it be nice if it was the other way around?! I would have that problem nipped in the bud so fast!

Raise your insurance deductables to $1000, eliminate 2nd car if possible, stay home more.

Get rid of it if it's not absolutely necessary!
Cut cable $960.00
DF cigarettes $1820.00
DF lunches $1040.00
my lunches $520.00
soda $260.00
childcare $3120.00 (if we could have a 9 & 10yr old watch themselves )
family eating out $1560.00
thirft shop/ garage sales unneeded things $520.00
haircuts $150.00
helping family $250.00
totals $10,200 including childcare $7080.00 not including.

I would be in divorce court!!!

Cut tv, computer, phone $1,620
Sell my Jeep $5,000 (if I'm lucky!)
That would lower our car ins by I'm guessing $500

OK I'm not willing to give up any of that LOL but even if I was it isn't 10,000.