Living on Half Your Budget

A family chooses to cut their living expenses by 50%. But maybe they lived too extravagantly in the first place!

NBC's Today Show followed a family along for a week as they proceeded to slash their budget in half. Viewers saw them cut out fast food, invite friends over for a potluck dinner instead of going out to dinner, and pull out a slip-and-slide for the kids instead of going to the movies.

As I watched the episode unfold, I couldn't help but think this family should have been living this way all along. Of course you don't need to be eating fast food two or three times a week. And eating out would be the first thing to go.

At the end of the segment, the mom says she'll continue with some of her new found habits, but she plans to go back to getting pedicures.

What did we, the viewers learn from this experiment? How easy it is to cut expenses, I guess. But duh, was it a huge surprise to learn that it's cheaper to make coffee at home than go to Starbucks everyday?