I work from home, and rent/food/utilities/internet in northern Colorado is about $2,000 a month. Aside from rent, the internet is my biggest expense: I live in the mountains, so I pay ~$450/mo for a T1 - cable/DSL is not available, and satellite sucks. I could live in town and pay less, but my rent would go up, and I'd rather live in the mountains.
As for business expenses, I average ~$1,000 in recurring charges per month, which pays for servers, payment processing, web app subscriptions, and international calls. I usually spend another thousand a month on books, courses, and other continuing education, since that's my market.
Have you looked at MIT's OpenCourseWare or iTunes University (same thing, just a different set of servers to DL from -- and an iPhone/iPad compatible format) for classes/continuing education? Because if it worked out, you could save some money.
What about Skype or a VOIP phone for international calls? (I don't recommend Vonage. I've had run ins with their service after some billing errors and it was very unpleasant, to the point where I would NEVER recommend them.
Most of the training I'm taking is pretty specific, and not available on OpenCourseWare or iTunes. It's worth the investment in teaching material alone - the more ideas/techniques/approaches I'm exposed to, the more valuable I am as a consultant, so the ROI is great.
I use Skype for some calls if the connection is good. For others, hard line is still best. I have a landline in the event the electricity goes out, so it's not a huge deal.
Looked into that before getting the T1 - mountains make it difficult to get direct line-of-sight to almost anything, and I'm surrounded by national park, so it's difficult to build towers to relay a signal. Video is a big part of my business, so having a dedicated upload pipe is also useful.
Don't think my landlord would approve - he lives 400ft away. On the upside, I ran a buried ethernet cable down to his house, so he helps pay for the T1.
As for business expenses, I average ~$1,000 in recurring charges per month, which pays for servers, payment processing, web app subscriptions, and international calls. I usually spend another thousand a month on books, courses, and other continuing education, since that's my market.