It's been a long time since things were *very lean* and I had to be frugal out of necessity.
Some things:
We lived on WIC food. I was breastfeeding and received tuna, carrots, dried beans, extra milk, cheese, juice, cereal, peanut butter, eggs etc.
After buying WIC (Women, Infant, & Children nutrition program here in the States) food, I would buy a large pkg of hamburger, a 3lb pkg of macaroni, ramen noodles, coffee, and bread, maybe some tomato sauce. I didn't even have enough left to buy baking supplies. That year, we made just over $5000 (for the entire year) and we were stupid and had a car payment that ate up nearly half that. Add in gas for work (I was a pizza delivery driver...7 mos pregnant...and my (late) dh couldn't seem to hold a job to save his life).
I would make things like:
mac & cheese
homemade hamburger helper (mac, hamburger, tomato soup, cheese)
goulash (American chop suey- mac, hamburger, tomato sauce & spices - or spaghetti sauce)
macaroni & hamburger soup (hamburger, mac, broth, bay leaves)
peanut butter sandwiches
pea soup
ramen
eggs everything, breakfast lunch & dinner
I also would bring home pizzas from work that were unsold or had to be burned off & thrown away because they couldn't be used the next day. My manager would give them to me to bring home. We got really really sick of pizza lol.
I also participated, when funds allowed, in something called FoodSense. A program where you could purchase food pkgs for almost half wholesale price. So for $14, we would get $25 worth of food. Yummy things we couldn't afford usually, like fresh fruit, pork steaks/chops, a roast, canned soups, coffee, drink mixes, etc.