Hello
@Kirsty41 and welcome to the forum.
I can add a little more detail to VashtiB 's post:
1. There is little to choose between the more affordable Blood Glucose meters ( all BG meters sold in the UK conform to the exact same standards). The major difference is the cost of the testing strips (you use 1 for each test but you don't need a new lancet for each test - or even each day) and if you are testing as most of us did then in the first couple of months i.e. before and then 2hrs after each meal, you will get through quite a lot of testing strips.
The testing strips are specific to particular BG meters. The meters with the cheapest test strips are the Spirit Tee2 and the SD Gluco Navii which both have strips at a price of around £8 for 50.
2. Cutting carbs is what many/most of us did to reverse our T2 Diabetes. Here is a link to one member's advice on this:
https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html
Apart from the Low Carb forum here, many of us find at least the free section of
www.dietdoctor.com to be useful for info and ideas on meals, as is Google for looking up the carbohydrate content of branded foods(including supermarket 'own brands'.
Note that in the UK Cabs are shown as Net Carbs (i.e. with the indigestible fibre content already subtracted, but in the USA they show total carbs so you then need to subtract the fibre content.