re: How to eat cheap...

Leann Brown's Good and Cheap cookbook uses the food assistance allowance of $4/day and is full of tasty, interesting, easy to make food. PDF here: LINK

Beans, lentils, chickpeas.....buy dried and cook yourself. Hummus is dead simple to make, yet people buy it in overpriced tubs because they don't like to plan ahead or somehow think processed and packaged is superior to homemade. I do like to cook with an eye toward freezing, and I like to stash meal building blocks in the freezer as well: think stock, sauces, already browned and seasoned beef for tacos, cooked beans, etc.