Reducing Expenses
When it comes to reducing expenses, you really need to take a long hard look at what you are spending your money on.  Better yet, look at it this way, would you rather have your home or the things you spend your money on (daily latte, lunch, CD's, eating out, etc) that you really don't need.

First, let's take a look at some of our discretionary daily expenses:

• coffee/latte/juice - $10/week ($40/month)
• breakfast - $20/week ($80/month)
• newspaper - $3/week ($12/month)
• lunch - $50/week ($200/month)
• cigarettes - $5/week ($20/month)
• lottery/scratch tickets - $20/week ($80/month)

So, on average, we spend about $432/month on these daily items.  We can save money here if we cut back on eating out every day, buying a coffee in the morning, buying lottery tickets, etc.  If you implement a strict budget on yourself (make sure you leave the debit card at home) by giving yourself a set amount of money each week, you force yourself to decide how the money will be spent.  If you can do this, you will find a way to get by with what you have until the next week.

Next, let's look at some of our discretionary monthly expenses:

• Movies by mail (Netflix, Blockbuster, etc)
• Daily newspaper
• Clothes
• Eating out
• Entertainment
• Drinks at the bar

These items can be and should be cut out completely (we never said that it was going to be easy), allowing a minimum budget for some of these items if possible.

Now, let's look at some expenses that we can reduce:

• Cable
  Look at your cable bill and see if there are ways to reduce your bill, possibly by changing your channel package and/or returning a cable box
• Cell phone 
  Review your cell phone bill and see if there is a cheaper plan or even transfer to a prepaid cell phone
• Home phone
  Review rates of other phone companies to see if you can save money by switching or cancel your phone company all together and strictly use your cell phone for all phone calls
• Daycare
  If you have 1 or 2 kids in daycare, you know that it is very expensive, see if there is a relative who can watch child or children a day or two each week
• Gas
  Contact your electric company or go to their website to find money-saving tips to help keep heating costs down
• Electric
  Call your electric company or go to their website to find money-saving tips to help keep electricity costs down 

If after combing through all of your monthly expenses and reducing every possible expense and you still have a negative balance at the end of the month, the next thing that you need to do is look for ways to increase your income.