One way to reduce cost as a consumer is to watch ones money spending. For example, my mother likes to buy a lot of high quality foodstuff to cook for my family at home. Some examples are Kobe beef, one of the most expensive beefs in the market. It easily costs 3-4 times more than standard beef. So instead of buying a more luxurious standard of beef, my mother could buy a cheaper standard of beef. This way she cuts down on cost. This could also be applied to other goods such as cars and such. Why spend thousands more cash on a BMW when you could get around just fine with just a Toyota or Subaru.
One way to reduce cost as a producer is to cut down production cost. After consulting my parents, I have learnt that company owners have many other alternatives to retrenchment. For example, a business owner could give their workers 3 working days a week. Or they could cut the wages of every worker in the company. Another example is the use of technology instead of manpower. Farmers could buy or invest in machinery which would make farming a lot easier. In the short run, this may be more expensive as the cost of technology is not cheap. However in the long run, this would pay off as there would be fewer workers to pay.
That's true, but sometimes you just don't get the same satisfaction eating a different type of beef or driving a Toyota - it is to get the satisfaction that people pay more for. In Europe, they tried cutting down the work days - but then they found out that service becomes slow because people are in the office processing customers requests!
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