If you have room for a small chest freezer, get one. We bought a cheap one from someone of Gum tree and installed in the garage. Means we can do multi buys on milk, bread, reduduced meats etc and other freezable items. My biggest money saving tip - join Costco if you have one near you, not everything is cheaper but some things are a real bargain. 10x 4 pack of velvet toilet roll for a tenner, 2x90 boxes of Finish dishwasher tablets for about £11 ish, 12 tins of chopped tomatoes for £2.99 and my personal favourite, 3x pack of Aveeno cream (the only thing that keeps my little gilr's eczema at bay) for £6 when just one cost that much in Boots! Bread is also excellent quality and a pack of two for £1.79 as as is massive kilo packs of qulaity mature chedder cheese for £4-5. Loads of other examples like bagels, peanut butter and packs of chicken breast etc which are excellent quality and excellent value. You do need somewhere to store them all though, hence the garage and chest freezer, lol! Having said that, my SIL and brother live in a 2 bed flat and she somehow finds places to keep her Cosco stuff so I guess it can be done if you have some imaginative storage ideas! We do a Costco shop every 6-8 weeks and spend about £50-80 but you can spend a lot more if you get carried away and know many people that do. Like everything else, if you stick to what you need, you're less likely to overspend.
We buy fresh fruit and veg from wherever is on offer and always buy value onions, carrots, potatoes etc. often, they are just pence and are but mishapen or have more earth on them. Inside, still the same stuff and goes down exactly the same way. If veg is reduced and still good, i buy, chop and freeze. I always buy 10kg bags of Basmati rice when on offer and last week they were £8 each in Morrisons cos it was Ramadam I think? Anyway, the two bags should last us the year at least. Cereals are either supermarket own brand whichever is cheapest or softly Aldi. The only cereal from Aldi that's a bit suspect IMHO is their version of Shreddies- they're awful but the rest are great. Nappies and wipes are probably our biggest expense, and again we look out for offers and stock up heavily whenever there is a good deal. I'm not ashamed to say I travelled 60 miles to an Asda branch recently when they were doing 9x packs of pampers wipes for £3.50 and cleared their shelves. I reckon we have enough wipes to see us through till we start potting training in about 6-7 months time (I hope!)
Toiletries and household cleaning products come from Aldi and the poundshop and Wilkinsons, as does cheap arts and craps type thingies that my kids seem to love...
I bake all our biscuits and cakes, so much nicer and I like knowing what I'm eating. I'm on the look out for a Panasonic bread maker for a good price so I can baking our own bread. I cook from scratch mostly and husband an I both take packed lunches to work. Also take in our own tea and coffee and take some milk in a bottle, ever since the work tea club hiked from £1.25 a week to £3.50 with no explanation!
I'm too lazy busy to meal plan but we set a budget of £300 for food and sundries each and we live very comfortably within this for the 4 of us.