Let me start off by saying, this will not be a super lightweight build.

My objective is to moderately lower the weight of my porky 12.5kg Specialized Carve.

I don't want to break the bank, and I won't be upgrading everything at once. This build is going to take some time.

My goal is to get under 11kg on a budget, suggestions are always welcomed.

Here's the bike stock.

Carve by rbike90, on Flickr

Carve Stock by rbike90, on Flickr

Today I cut the steerer tube and switched out the chain.

Cutting down the steerer tube and removing the spacers saved me 12g.

Slammed by rbike90, on Flickr

Switching out the stock KMC X10 for a KMC X10SL saved me another 16g.

KMC X10 by rbike90, on Flickr

KMC X10SL by rbike90, on Flickr

KMC X10SL by rbike90, on Flickr

My next change will be a new seat post clamp and skewers. The current ones are a bit on the heavy side.

Carve Skewers by rbike90, on Flickr

Carve Seat Post Clamp by rbike90, on Flickr

After that I hope to pick up some new tires when the trails dry up in the spring for some real weight savings.

Wheels/tires and cranks can save quite a bit. I work for a shop that sells Spec and those are the two biggest things on these bikes.

I'm going to be picking up some S-Works Renegade tires towards the end of March. That should shave a bunch of weight. As for wheels, I'm really curious to see what the stock wheel set weighs. I'm assuming the anchors though.

I like lightweight but durability too...

Saddle and seatpost are like lead-heavy.
Saved me a lot of weight on them: Tune Speedneedle marathon + Tune Starkes Stuck seatpost (no weight or use limit).

Wheels were next... (frontwheel was a tad over 1700 gr)... swapped them for:
ZTR Crest tubeless with Tune skyline QR's, Xt rt86 rotors and Schwalbe Rocket Ron Evo front and Racing Ralph back.
Cassette is a 11-22 Sram PG1070.
These give me a light rolling lightweight setup for flying to and from work (11-22 is lightweight and has the tooth by tooth 11-12-13-14-... advantage).
For heavy work and climbing I still have my second wheelset with the 11-36.
Weight savings? About 1kg500!!! Must be honest though: it's (as I mentionned) a setup for riding to work through the park and over cobbles and bikeroads.

2 more disturbing things: the 70cm WIIIIIDDDEE bar up front and the unknown stem holding it + the mysterious crankset???
The bar goes out for a smaller version, crankset needs like a 42-28 or so to give me more topspeed and keep good gearing when using the 11-36 wheel in the back.
So: do I change rings, or should I swap the entire crankset for some lightweight heavy duty set like...??? What's the weight of the original '1250 custom' crank?
Or the bars weight?

By next weekend I should be around 10kg for my 19"er, and if I'm above that... swapping bar and stem should do it to dive under the 10K limit. If not: crank action will be needed. ;-P

I have the same bike and it sits at 24.8/11.25kg for a 19". The crank is actually pretty decent but you can make huge gains on the post and saddle(can't remember exactly but I think they were about 700g). I swapped both for my trusty slr and a generic carbon post to save a pound. You can save another 100+g swapping out the stock cassette for the XX but that will be a little more costly. Also, the stock QR's for something even reasonably light will net another 60-100g savings. After that the next huge savings is wheels. The stock setup is about 2100g. I'm looking at doing that next to take it down to about 23.5lb bike for still under $2k