Hello souper, welcome to our family
I find it quite easy to buy the main ingredients for my daily intake at very affordable prices. Remember the core of your plate is protein, fats, and greens, everything else is an add on. So lets talk about it.
At the grocery store yesterday I found
Boneless skinless chicken breast on sale- $1.99 per pound
Turkeys- $89 cents per pound
Pork loin- $2.49 per pound
Boston Butt pork roast- $1.99 per pound
London Broil steaks- $1.99 per pound
In my kitchen I buy these kinds of protein all the time on sale, cut them up and freeze proper sized meals. I keep heavy greens in the fridge all the time like cabbage, collards. broccoli and cauliflower all which are very affordable. Now comes the fats.... Cheese is my all time fav fat and we buy our cheeses at half the grocery store price from Sam's Club....great prices on cheeses there. For pancakes and muffins my flour of choice is Golden Flax Seed meal at a price of about $3.00 per bag. Add eggs at $1.39 a dozen and a few other ingredients and all kinds of recipes open up to you.
The key is to learn how to cook fresh foods and stay away from prepackaged stuff. You pay for the convenience and the foods are no where near as good as what you prepare yourself.
Want expensive....try this on for size------- Potato chips average $10.00 per pound!!!!!!! Yikes