[jiggy2011]

The big problem, at least in the UK is that cost of food and other essentials has gone up by a lot while wages have remained stagnant. This can make even a frugal budget fall apart because at the end of the day you still need to put some food in your face.

It's easy enough to stop buying consumer stuff that you don't need, but you do need some way to entertain yourself and if you want any social or family life at all eventually you're probably going to end up in some pretentious bar with overpriced drinks.

[dblock]

I think one should some hard math on how much food costs vs. some of these other expenses that the article says to start cutting _first_. TV is 100$, which is easily 5 days of food in New York City if you live on a budget. A car is 500$, which is a month worth of food. Even if food prices were to go down, it wouldn't be by 50%.

[jiggy2011]

I agree, don't buy stuff you don't need if you are buying stuff you don't need then stop doing that.

My point is more that this is trumpeted as ground breaking financial advice but actually in many cases you can still have financial problems even if you aren't buying crap you don't need at which point trying to cut expenses gets exponentially harder.

[eli_gottlieb]

The big problem, at least in the UK is that cost of food and other essentials has gone up by a lot while wages have remained stagnant. This can make even a frugal budget fall apart because at the end of the day you still need to put some food in your face.

This has been happening for 40 years in the United States.