Phobophile said:
I can't imagine ditching my cell phone, especially since most twentysomethings don't have a landline and really their cell phone is their home phone. I need a phone for emergencies.
In all honesty, I really can do 3x min payments, but that would involve a huge lifestyle change. I have a 2 bedroom apartment, so if push came to shove, I could get a roommate but I can't get rid of my internet. Cable TV, sure but not internet. And I don't think I've ever read more than 3 newspapers in my life.
Just throwing some ideas your way. I don't know exactly what you could kill or what's important to you so I have to generalize.
A few other things you can do is to grocery shop and kill eating out, if you don't already. Try getting on the internet and pulling up 2-3 grocery stores that are in your area. Get their weekly adds and go through them, writing down any really great deals on a sheet of paper. When you're done, write a list for the 2-3 stores, picking up all the low cost, non-brand name (or brand name if the deal is better) items you need. With a month of practice, you can cut the amount of money you spend eating by 75% or greater. Me and my fiancee usually buy 2-3 weeks worth of groceries (3 meals a day) for $115. And it's not ramens either.
Also, if you don't already, shop thrift stores for your clothing. To some people, this sounds "omg, no" but trust me... find stores that carry brands you like. The store I shop regularly has Abercrombie, Gap, Levis, etc for cheap. As in, 60-70$ jeans going for 3$. 20$+ shirts going for 1.50$... and half off of that on specially colored tag days. Doing something like this can cut your shopping expenses (for clothes) by a significant amount.
And if you enjoy watching movies, go to your local library to borrow them instead of buying them or renting them. If you do like to buy, though, go out of your way to find the greatest deals on them so you're not spending 10-15$ per.
The objective is just to have a great credit to debt ratio and to have it for a long time. You'll end up with a really great credit score because of it and getting loans will be so much easier for anyhing you want/need to do. That and you'll have money in your pocket for emergencies and won't need to rely on a credit card to do it for you.
And Javaman is correct... you can buy MORE when you don't use credit. Not only that, if you don't buy retail and don't spend money on things that are duplicated (why cable when most of the shows you'd watch anyway are on the internet connection you already use? And I'm not even talking torrents), you can buy even MORE.