i find the cheapest food budget will include filler foods. potatoes are cheap and fill you up
also cheese sandwiches. eggs are another one as well as macaroni and home made sauce. also make p izza from scratch.
as far as living cheaply, i find it an interesting challange. the purchases i make are cheap. in the morning i ride to deli to get newspaper to read in the morning. i make my coffee at home. i use thrift shops for buying clothes, they practically give them away. and i shop at the dollar store in town where everything is a dollar. the rest of the stores are unneeded.
i also use the local library and park for a hang out.
all i get is 690 a month from social security disability as i have a mental illness.
my favorite pasttime is talking to people i meet on the street and hearing what their life consists of and to see if they have any neato ideas on what to do that is cheap.
really if i worked i would not live any better. i am an accountant by trade and a staff accountant in these parts gets 18 dollars an hours gross. the stats say 1/3 of one's income goes to a car so that gives me 12 dollars an hour to live on. no big deal really.
on disability i have full medical coverage which i would not get if i worked.
acorn