I would buy a box of oatmeal, a package of noodles, a small bag of rice, a small package of cheese slices, a loaf of bread, a couple of onions, one pound of hamburger, a couple of small cans of tomato sauce and a couple of cans of tomato soup.
Menus for the week would be oatmeal for breakfast. Neither of us eat lunch so suppers would be noodle goulash, grilled cheese and tomato soup and rice mess.
Rice mess is rice, a little bit of hamburger and tomato sauce and seasonings.
I lived on a pretty limited food budget when my kids were growing up. We got paid once a month so I had to really make things stretch.