What is the difference between essential and non essential expenses?

Those things are considered essential, which you need to survive or to function. Those things are nonessential if you can manage without them. So, people do have to eat, but there is a wide range of foods that will sustain our lives, and we do not have to choose the more luxurious items if our budget does not permit. People do need housing, but not necessarily the kind that costs $2000/month. People need clothing, but it does not necessarily have to be fashionable or elegant clothing. People want entertainment, but the entertainment budget is very flexible; we can certainly survive without it, or find free forms of entertainment, which certainly exist; public libraries are full of entertaining books that you can read for free, for example.