I got a half price Delivery saver offer from Tesco a few months back (mumsnet is doing one now, I got an email about it earlier) so I paid £30 & for 6 months I can have my shopping delivered into the kitchen as long as I spend £40 a shop.
You can go & chuck whatever you like in the basket days before you even check out, see how much it costs, look in the cupboard & realise you already have enough of that etc... & it's such a boring site to be on it's actually difficult to impulse buy.
I usually buy the same things, so I just go to my favourites to see everything I've ever bought in the last year or so & throw in the basics plus anything I notice is on special offer if it's something I wait to buy on special. The dates are listed so you even know when the offer ends, so sometimes I leave it til next weeks shop.
Even after you've checked out, you can log back in & amend the order up to 11.45pm the night before it's delivered if you forgot something or want to delete an item, or even change when it will be delivered.
I now spend MUCH less on shopping, never have to deal with tantruming kids wanting sweets or for you to abandon the trolley so they can go to the toilet, getting the shopping home or paying the transport costs.
They temporarily take £2 out of your account when you place your order, which will go back in a couple of days later, but don't take out the cost of the shopping until the morning of the delivery, so you can order the shopping before payday as long as you know the money will be there by the delivery date.
So far (in the last 3 months of my membership) they've sent me a free packet of popcorn, some free samples of gravy, some free crisps, a voucher to choose a free gift of either a box of chocolates (I went for the big £7 box of ferroro rocher) or a bottle of wine, there were about 30 items to choose from between wine & chocs to be delivered on your next shop, codes for free delivery on items from Tesco Direct.
One day, the delivery guy turned up 10 minutes after his delivery window (van had broken down), they refunded me the £6 the delivery slot would have cost even though I told them I didn't pay £6 as I had a delivery saver which means all these deliveries have cost me £24.
Once, they turned up without nappies or baby milk (said they were out of stock) I phoned up & complained to customer services, they sent out replacements for free delivered in a cab.
If you think you've lost any clubcard vouchers or coupons btw, log in there & you can see how many you've had, how many you've spent & any you haven't used that are still valid - I saved over a tenner on last weeks shop as I only just found this out, I had £7 worth of unused vouchers & a load of unused money off & extra points coupons my toddler had drawn all over for things I was buying anyway like semi skimmed milk.
You can print off copies & use them instore if you don't like shopping online.
I also turn off everything except the boiler & the fridge/freezer at the wall before going to bed, even things like the cooker.
I bought a solar powered/wind up radio alarm clock (which doubles as a torch should I ever need it) for my bedroom for £13, I've been using it as my radio for about 6 months now & I've never had to wind it, daylight keeps it charged.
It also works really well as a little radio to take to the beach or into the garden, although the sound is not the best. It's free to use.
I batch cook meals like chilli, bolognaise, curry etc.., freeze portions then reheat them in the microwave. Much cheaper than cooking them from scratch everytime, less washing up & cooking too.
Doing these things has reduced my electricity bill by about a third.
I do some limited gardening (pots of tomatoes, come & cut again salad leaves, peppers, a blueberry bush, strawberry plants etc..) which saves me a fortune in fresh veg.
I bought the strawberry plants in Wilkos on clearance for 20p per hanging basket at the end of the season about 3 years ago, my 2 baskets are now 4 hanging baskets & I get about a punnet of strawberries every couple of weeks in the summer.
Would be more if I remembered to water them or plant all the sprouts that grow off them or ever feed them, but not bad for 40p.
I buy value seeds when it's 3 for a £1 & use the same packet 3 years running, the seeds still grow.
If it can't survive with my limited & forgetful input, I don't grow it again.
I went on the water website & got all the freebie watersaving devices they would give me, managed to knock a tenner off my water bill each quarter with that.
I started to complain when it's justified.
I know that sounds dumb, but if you order something & it doesn't turn up, or it's not right, don't let it go, complain politely.
I've ended up with refunds, perks, extended subscriptons & compensation due to inappropriate behaviour by a companies representative worth over £800 this year already.
In the past I just would have let it slide & paid that money on the same things myself
I cancelled sky & got a freesat box
If you want the Sky movies channels, you can pay £15 a month subscription on a payg month to month basis & get them online so no contract you can just do one month - there's a free month trial if you've never done it before.
I get it once in the summer holidays & plan to do a month at Christmas if I like the look of the films coming up then.
Most of the films on those movie channels hang aruond forever anyway.
Started using YNAB budgeting software (picked it up in the steam sale for a tenner)
It took me a couple of months to get used to using it & I had to make a few fresh starts, but I'm actually a lot better off for using it as I can't bear to see the red overbudgeted message & I can see all the bills etc.. in advance.
Helped me pinpoint areas I was spending on but forgetting to budget correctly for like kids clothing.
Which led me to start shopping the clarks shoe sale online (my son is an E or F fitting depending on style, so it's clarks or nothing) - you can get up to 6 pairs of shoes sent to the store for free & you don't have to pay for them til you pick them up, so if you see the right size shoes for your kids/yourself today, but don't get paid til next week, you can still get them at the sale price.
It take them 3 to 5 days to send the shoes to the store, then you get a text/email to say they are there, then you go in & try them on or buy them. They will hold them for 9 days after they've arrived in store.
If you don't like them after all, you don't have to buy them!
Or of course, you can just get them delivered to your home for free.
Personally I never seem to have the money when the stuff I want is on sale.
Now I've got his next size up shoes & trainers in the cupboard, total cost for a pair of leather clarks shoes & a pair of doodles was £26 instead of £54 for same shoes off sale.
Don't buy stuff because it's on sale, figure out what you have to buy & then find out where it's on sale & if it's worth going there to get it or will cost you more to go out of your way/in postage etc..
There's loads more, but this post is starting to look like a novel.
They are all actually easy things to do, if it is too much effort I try something else.