Help with lowering expenses? [awaits flamethrowers, long, srry]

I’ve used mint for a bit, and came up with the following categories for spending that I seem to incur regularly.
Any advice appreciated.
This is a marriage/dual income scenario, we both make in the same ballpark

1821   Mortgage      [3.375/30-yr]
756   property tax
587   Clothing
748   Groceries
490   Restaurants
900   Cash withdrawls
361   Gasoline [much of this is me and surf trips, I’m 30 miles from the beach]
728   car payment    [0.9, effectively a zero cost loan]
634   Pet food/supplies/veterinary
456   Dog walker
584   Monthly Bills (phone, internet, PGE, directv, etc)
280 Domestic assistance (maid, gardener)
2400   Other stuff
10775

Obviously the answer is “kill the other stuff, kill the dog walker, cut the cable/internet/bills/home phone line/etc” but my partner likes those things and compromise may be possible but there are some sacred cows. And I think we are meeting most of our savings goals I’d like to do “…a little bit better” though, but my partner thinks we can probably do better as well.

Any pointers? Basically it goes like this. Every month. $1k gets spent as a “1 time” expense here, there everywhere. Gifts to friends/family, impromptu vacations, etc. Many of which I agree with. How do you learn to control spending as a team? We communicate fine and I’m afraid I’m continually moving the goal posts on my partner. As in “hey! you said to max our 401ks and a bajillion other vehicles and you’d shut up! well, we are and you haven’t”

In spirit of teamwork, I’m afraid I’m ratcheting up pressure to hit a goal of 9k or less total all-in spending monthly average moving forward [present = 10,500]. But we are already meeting our goals more or less. Life is short right?
This summer I will take an annual bonus and knock out the car payment, so we’ll own 3 cars free and clear [his/hers, + his toy from 15 years ago that just sits in the garage and isnt worth much]. Example I try to say “..hey let me wash the dog”, but *bam, dropped off at the foofo shop for $50.

Otherwise I cant believe this is 2013 and I still cant convince my partner to cut the landline [emergency, security, likes the simplicity of international phone calls to parents, wont use a cell phone/skype/alternate and this is kind of a dead argument at this point]
Similar with directtv. I know netflix/hulu/amazon/on-demand/streaming gives us a ton of stuff well under our committed $120 burn but it’s a sacred cow. Fine. Dog Walker is a sacred cow too (~$400/mo), “our dog deserves it, likes to enjoy a walk outside”, I’ve discussed him just using the dog door, we have a nice fenced in and safe yard, but our cats might escape, etc. This is a sacred cow too.

I’d love to know how to knock down the 2700/month in regular “other” spending but cant seem to figure out how to start. Each item is always a perfectly logical expense. Why yes, of course your mother needs that $150 birthday present. Duh. Why of course we’ll give your cousin a $500 check for graduating college/HS/law/business school. After all, we’re the ones with money! [duh!]

I am absolutely not blameless and love to spend money too. I guess I dont know what I’m saying. My partner has suggested a convenient tool to check spending levels in order to cut back where needed. I set up mint and gave the login. Hasnt logged in yet. Set up the budget tab, hasnt looked at it. Very busy person at work, I understand. We mostly use 1 credit card for all expenses. Check the balance I say. Too difficult, time consuming, or hard to remember to do. Expenses grow and grow. Maid pressures us to come more often, partner agrees, etc.

Certainly I dont see this as a disaster but my first thought was to simply cut up all credit cards and move to cash everything. It seems to be my only hope. For instance, my partner can withdraw say $3,000 a month, spend it however it wants [staying gender nuetral here], and no questions asked. I take $1,000, spend it however I want, add that to our fixed bills and no problem, we’ll spend under $9k/month easily.

Annual savings picture: At our current rate we’ll be FI in our mid 40s [~8 years from now]
We save approximately 25% of gross income annually currently. Our investment portfolio is ~600k, and our home equity is ~500-600k conservatively.

The investment portfolio is nice and indexed/low cost/bogleheadish
Current savings vehicles [annually] are:
His/Her 401k+match(where applicable) 41,500
His/Her Roth IRAs [his/her] 11,000 [via backdoor, google that if you havent heard about backdoor Roth]
His 401k post-tax [converted 1x annually to His Roth] 20,000 [below 51k federal limit, just barely for 401k+match+post tax]
His HSA @ work [3k incl emplyer contribs]
Their Ibonds: 5,000 paper I-bonds with federal tax return [by prepaying 5k over what we owe, we like paper]
Their Taxable investing: 5,000 /yr, normally in foreign large cap index funds for tax advantages/foreign tax credit
net of $85k saved/yr, including 401k emp match

Buying Land From A Neighbor. Where To Start?

You need a real estate attorney.If the parcel is a separate parcel that was conveyed to your neighbor by itself, there is probably a deed description of it somewhere in the registry of deeds.  Depending on your state, the old deeds may be found online, or not.  Your neighbor would then convey that parcel back to you.  If the land has already been described in the old deed, it won’t need to be surveyed again if its boundaries haven’t changed.Your attorney will also want to check with your town’s zoning board to see if the parcel is classified as undevelopable land or not.  If it is developable land, then it will be assessed for a higher value (= more taxes) and you will probably want to put a deed restriction on it when your neighbor conveys it to you so that it won’t be developable.