Been There, Done That

[george_r_1961]

Tomato soup and cheese melted. Cheese melted is a grilled cheese sandwich. My kids called it that when they were little and the name stuck.

Fried egg sandwiches.

Hamburger helper. Good thing my family likes it.
Beenie Weenies. Hotdogs in pork and beans.

That was my favorite when I was a kid. Could eat it every day if my parents let me

[MomH]

When I was younger and my husband was in college we ate a lot of chicken wings ($.19 LB), ox tail stew ($.29 LB) and chicken backs ($.16 LB) made into chicken and noodles. Ox Tails are so high now I can't afford to make a meal for the family.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Hard to be cheaper than this; but I DO recall more than just a few:

Mustard sandwiches.... seriously...

A2K

[Miss Mary]

Mustard sandwiches - that's a new one!

Fried egg sandwiches - we still make them CM!

My best example of how tight a budget can be was when I quit a full time job and went back to school, first time ever in college, full time days, at age 30. I was living off my divorce settlement and savings plan from my old job (could have rolled it into a 401K plan but didn't). I stopped my daily newspaper, dropped cable, washed dishes by hand, opened windows (no A/C), made lunch my main meal of the day Mon-Fri - hot buffet lunch at school, only $1.50 for students (uh this was the mid 80s), I went back for seconds, read the daily paper in the school library, didn't buy new clothes for about 2 years, etc. Oh, bought generic foods - coffee, canned goods. I discovered they are sometimes just as good as name brands so I still buy generic (75% of the tiime). This all lasted about 2 years. After a while it was fun to see what else I could cut out from my monthly budget! I ended up working part time on campus too.

You can cut corners if you want to!