What are your top three tips for slicing $50 from your weekly household budget?

Easy! Live like a slob recluse!

Ditch cleaning products ($5) and petrol to get to work ($30), because you won’t be going. Now, as you aren’t going to be seeing anyone, you can also ditch clothes ($15) and spend the week naked in front of the TV. Awesome!

Just don’t answer knocks at the door – someone might misunderstand your cunning plan.

Downside? It will probably get boring after a week.

We might need a Plan B.

Gen Xers are in a high-spending stage of life. Money flows through our hands like the sands in that Days of our Lives hourglass.

With some combination of an upwardly moving/frantic career, the bottomless expense that is children, school fees and a whopper mortgage, cutting $50 from weekly spending can be as irksome as watching re-runs of Scott and Charlene-era Neighbours.

Finance is all about choices. Here is where I reckon Gen Xers spend/waste the most money. Therefore, where the biggest opportunities to save are.

Cars: Have you caught a nasty dose of “affluenza”? Cars are depreciating, wealthy-sucking vampires. Don’t upgrade to something $10,000-$20,000 more expensive than you need, just because the loans guy said you could. Spend as little on cars as you can.

Memberships and subscriptions: Are you paying for services you don’t use? An unused gym membership? Magazines that pile up unread? Make the call and cancel the ones you aren’t using.

Eating out/entertainment: Relaxing is what keeps us sane. But it’s also where the most “discretion” can be exercised. Don’t cancel your life, but eating out less, or swapping expensive for cheap and cheerful meals can save wads.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and principal adviser with Castellan Financial Consulting.