Four field theory models are studied: Periodic Quantum Electrodynamics (PQED) in (2 + 1) dimensions, free scalar field theory in (1 + 1) dimensions, the Quantum XY model in (1 + 1) dimensions, and the (1 + 1) dimensional Ising model in a transverse magnetic field. The last three parts deal exclusively with variational methods; the PQED part involves mainly the path-integral approach. The PQED calculation results in a better understanding of the connection between electric confinement through monopole screening, and confinement through tunneling between degenerate vacua. This includes a better quantitative agreement for the string tensions in the two approaches. Free field theory is used as a laboratory for a new variational blocking-truncation approximation, in which the high-frequency modes in a block are truncated to wave functions that depend on the slower background modes (Boron-Oppenheimer approximation). This ''adiabatic truncation'' method gives very accurate results for ground-state energy density and correlation functions. Various adiabatic schemes, with one variable kept per site and then two variables per site, are used. For the XY model, several trial wave functions for the ground state are explored, with an emphasis on the periodic Gaussian. A connection is established with the vortex Coulomb gas of the Euclidean path integral approach. The approximations used are taken from the realms of statistical mechanics (mean field approximation, transfer-matrix methods) and of quantum mechanics (iterative blocking schemes). In developing blocking schemes based on continuous variables, problems due to the periodicity of the model were solved. Our results exhibit an order-disorder phase transition. The transfer-matrix method is used to find a good (non-blocking) trial ground state for the Ising model in a transverse magnetic field in (1 + 1) dimensions.