spiritinthesky i sort of do that, but through looking at my online bank account. We pretty much only ever use our card so we see the odd couple of pounds here and there.
The things that have made a difference to us:
The biggest saving - DH has given up smoking. He did not do this to save money. But obviously it has. But we have also noticed that it is not just the money from the tobacco he used to buy that we save. He would pop up the shop for some, and also buy a packet of biscuits, or some dorittos, or some nice croissants for breakfast as they were on offer, or a pudding for after tea, or a bottle of wine. He could easily go up there to spend £3 and come back having spent a tenner.
We buy milk for the freezer. This saves money by the same above. When one of goes to the shop to get milk, we also buy this, that, the other, treat here and there. If we have milk in the freezer, that trip is not needed.
Making our own pastry. Saves a little. And, i never knew, but it is bloody lovely.
Powdering up my own porridge for baby (weaning), not buying baby porridge, using grinding mill on food processor.
My microwave broke so i did not replace it. I was surprised at how little i miss it.
In my hallway and in my front room, i had 3 bulb light fittings. I changed these to a single pendant with lovely shades. Also I had two wall lights. I got rid of those. That meant reducing my lighting by 6 lights.
I changed my electric kettle to a Le Crueset gas hob kettle.
We buy one large ham from morrisons, and one large free range chicken from Lidl. We can get 3 meals from the ham, 3 from the chicken, and some stock for soup (we tend to do chicken and ham pie, chicken curry, chicken risotto, spaghetti carbonara, ham/egg/chips, and sometimes can also get one lot of ham/chicken sarnies for lunch) or a variety of those kinds of things.
I make biscuits.
I do not use fabric conditioner, or kitchen spray.
I have changed electricity tariff to the best one my provider offers (happens to be one of the best deals around i think?)
I have got rid of my mobile phone, which i did not actually use.
I walk more instead of using our gas guzzling car.
I do not shower every day, and when I do, I turn the taps on every so slightly less and I get out a few minutes quicker, same for DH. DD uses the shower with us and then splashes in the bath at the end.
I buy my veg from local veg shop.
DH has an 'audible' account which he shares with his brother. For a very small amount, he gets a number of books to download each month. He is a book worm and spent a lot of money on books. This has saved a fortune. He still buys charity shop books.
Gone through my old clothes/maternity stuff etc and sold it on ebay.
By children's clothes in particular from ebay.
In the summer, go swimming at the local free lido or the beach, not the swimming pool.
DH lost his job last year and I am on ML so our income dropped substantially. I did not realise how much we wasted. By making the above changes, we have reduced our monthly expenditure by £450.