I put a pound of ground turkey, an onion, couple of carrots and some celery in a crock pot, add chicken broth I made from previous chicken meals and let it go for 5 hours. In the last hour I add rice. Two bucks a meal and it lasts me 5 days. That’s my lunch for the week.
H-E-B has small pizzas for $7.99 which feeds two. We add green pepper and tomato slices. I also buy the ingredients for Chinese sauces and make my own. I made a char sui sauce which I use on chicken and pork which I buy in bulk. Goes great with fried rice or noodles. I recently made Char Sui chicken thighs with chicken chow fun and steamed dumplings for 7 people. Entire meal cost me 20 bucks.
One year I was really, really broke. I picked raspberries and made $5. Bought chicken, mac and vegies and made enough soup for a week. Of course that was about 35 years ago.