Housing can definitely get people into trouble. A co-worker mentioned that the bank said that he and his wife qualifed for a mortgage that would be about 2.5X the cost of my own house (we have roughly the same household income). Essentially, this would have allowed them to buy their dream house at roughly age 27. They smartly decided to use less than half that amount. When my wife and I went househounting, we went to the banks with a specific dollar amount – we didn’t just ask “hey, what’s the maximum amount you can give us?” We both have degrees in accounting (and she is a CPA) so we’re probably a bit more financially aware than the average couple.

As for the small stuff – Pat mentioned that cutting these only saved his family $75. I think he has a leak somewhere else in his budget. The single step of switching lunch from a $6 meal to PB&J (which I’ll price at a very high $2) would save $4/day, or $80+ over the course of the 20+ work days in a month. I think the cutbacks on the small stuff is saving more than $75, but that some of the savings is leaking out into other expenses.