The advice about reviewing your expenses with a fresh eye is critical.
As is the advice about eating out. If you don’t have a job, you should not eat out, period.
Thing like cable should be gone on day one.
Agreed. Cable is such a waste. I have been TV-free since 2004. I don’t feel like I’m missing much. Sometimes I’ll check out DVDs of popular shows from the library and watch them on my laptop (that’s how I discovered Monk.) Occasionally I’ll splurge and buy a set if I find a show I really like (Sherlock!) But for the most part, I don’t even know most of the shows on nowadays, and when I hear about them, they sound dreadful.