You can buy 5 dozen eggs for about 8$ at certain food stores. Go for eggs for quick protein. Plus Magnesium/manganese and a host of other useful vitamins. If you're in the U.S. you might want to check out the food stamp food availabilities to supplement.

Avoid Oatmeal, avoid legumes. Lectins and nutrient devoid carbs. When you cook bacon, save the grease and cook with it. The more fat you can cook with and consume, the fuller you will be. PS - Pork shoulders cost about 12-15 if you catch a good sale. ONe of those in the crockpot will feed you many a meal for many days. I have two I did sunday and I shouldn't run out until next friday or so. I've already had probably 10-14 servings off of them.

Good luck!

PS - Grok fasted too....use this as an opportunity to try IF and see what grok had to deal with...

I'm not an expert, but I'd wager a bet that white rice and sweet potatoes for filler calories would be a better bet than something like oatmeal. How do you feel about conventional meat? Frozen veg? This is what I'd do:

1. Find an Asian/Latino market. Buy mostly from there.
2. Buy a 20lb bag of white rice and use it to keep you from going hungry. Not strict paleo, but Perfect Health Diet.
3. Check out the discount produce bin. Two weeks ago I was really tight on cash and managed to get the following for a total of $5: 10 Japanese eggplant (the long, skinny variety); 2 American eggplant (the regular-looking kind); 3 lbs oranges; 5 lbs zucchini. For a single person that could very easily satisfy your veggie/fruit needs with maybe the addition of some garlic or onions (which are also dirt cheap).
4. Assuming you want to eat conventional/CAFO meat (I don't see any choice but to do so in this case), you probably want to get it at the international market as well. I see all sorts of things there, from ground meat to liver to tripe. I'd probably pick up some fresh sardines and learn how to cook them. Lean ground beef will probably be cheap, as will chicken. Eggs are a cheap source of protein as well.
5. Most of these places will have cheap spices in bulk as well. Were I not worried about gluten cross-contamination I'd get everything there.

Best of luck. I've been in the position to buy food for a family of four on about $250/month. It's tough, but doable if you get creative in the kitchen.

You are going to need to visit your local food bank, and apply for food stamps if you want to continue eating well. It takes a while to get on the SNAP rolls, so please enroll now. Here's the website to get started: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/

Things like chicken necks and feet, can be gotten for less money than regular meat, and make a great base for soup stock that you can then throw rice, potatoes, cabbage, whatever is on sale into for a hearty soup.

Talk to your local butchers to see what they get rid of, once again you'll likely get some cheap or free soup makings.

Buy a fishing pole, and take up fishing if there is any water near you.

If you have enough room for a few pots to grow things, you can grow kale and potatoes easily (the potatoes you just chuck in there after they sprout, and slowly add soil as the leaves grow until the pot is full, you can make many potatoes from one).

Eggs and beef can be cheap so long as you don't worry about pastured/grass fed. But check your local market to see which vegetables are cheapest per pound with the least waste.

And learn to produce less waste from what you buy by the pound. As an example, I can get broccoli pretty cheaply, but I used to end up throwing away the stalks because I had no idea what to do with them. I learned I can peel them and then cook them (usually sautéing, but you could steam them (in the microwave) too) and have a lot less waste that way.

Is there any way you could get a hot plate and a skillet?

I'm a very poor grad student and understand the budget thing. I live in a small town with overpriced Safeway and cheap-but-questionable WalMart. Is there any chance you could get your hands on a slow cooker? I see them at Goodwill and thrift shops all the time. I got a pork shoulder roast at WalMart on sale for $1.70/lb last week, tossed it in my crock pot and it made so much good meat! I also get the 5 dozen eggs like someone mentioned above. Frozen vegetables are much cheaper than fresh if you can't find any on sale. If the microwave is all you've got, go for potatos (sweet and yam if you can). Spaghetti and acorn squash can also be steamed nicely in a microwave if you catch them at a good price.

Again, this is something that's not for everyone, but I live in a rural area so I go fishing at least once a week and also pick wild berries. I could never afford to purchase these things.

This might just be me, or because I'm a female (5'5" 150 lbs), but once I went paleo my appetite really decreased which helps with food budgets. I only eat once a day and don't really have any cravings.

Good luck!

I do about $25-30 a week, but could probably go a bit lower if I had to. Stock up on potatoes, rice, olive oil, and coconut oil if you can afford it. I buy 3 lbs of frozen chicken per week, or whatever decent kind of meat is on sale. I can't tolerate eggs, but if you can, that'd be a good way to get protein and some fat. I have some nuts and seeds stocked up in my freezer. I buy good quality bacon (uncured, no nitrates) about once a month and cook with the fat, or just eat a straight spoonful of it. I get fresh tomatoes from my parents' house, but I hear canned tomato products are a good use of money. Spend the rest of your money on veggies, I like cabbage in particular and it doesn't go bad as quickly as some others. I also try to buy one "luxury" item, usually a dark chocolate bar, per week so I don't feel totally deprived. Sometimes I feel bad for not being able to afford optimal foods like grass fed beef, but then I put it in the perspective that I'm doing a heck of a lot better than most college students living off instant ramen and easy mac.

ETA: sweet potatoes and canned coconut milk are good and cheap too

All I can say is no. Cooking meat in the microwave puts me on the verge of vomiting.

I'd stock up on large sacks of potatoes. You can make casseroles in your microwave layering the potatoes... add in other vegetables if you wish like squashes or brocolli... I hear you can make ground beef crumbles in the microwave easily.

Sticking with the ground beef thing, you could get very cheap tomato sauce (hunts sauce) and add in cans of artichoke hearts or something for texture... mix it with the beef and it's delicious.

I am firmly in the crock pot camp. I just saw one at a thrift store in NYC for 4.50 that supposedly works.

You can often find large amounts of "cheaper" cuts of meat that work best cooked "low and slow" like pork shoulders (picnic shoulder or boston butt) and untrimmed brisket.

Buy in cheap bulk when possible and do your homework re: costs. I often grocery shop at 2 - 3 stores in a two week period to get the best deals.

Chicken thighs are cheaper than chicken breasts. Whole chickens are often your best buy. I just bought two whole chickens from cost co for a total of 9 dollars and got three meals out of each for my boyfriend and I.

Ribs are often fairly cheap and totally benefit from the crock pot "low and slow" style method.

Either way - food stamps are your friend. Depending on where you live, you can get an extra 20 - 50 dollars per week that way.

I agree... get the crockpot. Get the cheapest you can find -- you might not be able to program it, but hey.

Back in grad school, my diet was hot dogs and pasta. I actually considered writing a cookbook entitled "101 Ways of Cooking Hotdogs" at the time. This wasn't healthy by ANY nutritional idea out there, but fortunately this period didn't last so long, about a year and a half (with a cafeteria food plan for weekdays at lunch).

Suggestions: the eggs are a great idea. Not sure how to cook them in a crock pot or a microwave, but there must be some notion out there. (NOT whole!) Cabbage for sure, what a dense and long-lasting veggie! Romaine lettuce lasts longer than any other type in my experience. If a local grocery sells chicken giblets (liver, hearts, gizzards), go for it. The latter two items are really quite excellent -- chop them up if you put them in the nuker. The whole chicken is more affordable than parts ... and you can save the cartilage and bones for nutritious soup or stock.

Do you have a south-facing window that gets good sunlight? Try growing a few short term crops on your window sill. Spinach, or even herbs.

As was noted, food stamps and food banks may also be an option.

Hope this begins to help.

Extreme budget? No way! I thrive as a student on soup/ dog bones, organ meats of all kinds and buying suet/ fat products raw. Today I made my own pork crackling, bought pork skin for $1 a pound! Lots of protein and fat.

Pork shoulder at your local latino market for $1.79/lb (more or less).

I second the slow-cooker recommendation. Grab a big bag of rice. Grab a big bag of potatoes.

Slow cook a ten pound shoulder roast on sunday ($18) , that's 1.42 lbs of meat/day for the full week. Rice should come out to $.15 / serving if you buy in bulk. Same with taters.

1.42 lbs pork + 2 cups cooked white rice = 2100 kcals / 125 carbs / 92g fat / 165g protein.

Won't be pretty, but at $20/week: that's about as good as you'll do.

That's probably not enough to eat on, period. This might help: http://primaltoad.com/17-costco-staples/ Buy Costco meat (pork is often quite cheap) and eat with whatever vegs are cheapest that week Sprouts often has amazing sales on meats and vegs

It is TOTALLY doable-- I feed my family of five on an average of $125/week and we eat WELL.

-Eggs (I get pastured for $3/dozen, but you can get conventional for as low as $.79/dozen on sale) -Sardines (as low as $1/tin) -Canned Salmon (as low as $2.50/lb) -Chicken (you can get no antibiotic, whole chicken for as low as $1.99/lb-- if you're willing to go for conventional, it can be found for under $1/lb) -Chicken Liver (my local supermarket has Murray's chicken liver for $3/lb) -Beef (I've bought grass fed ground beef direct from a farmer for as low as $4/lb, so it CAN be done for almost as low as conventional-- consider cowpooling if you have some freezer space-- or, at the very least, wait for a great sale at Whole Foods and get no hormone/no antibiotic roasts for as low as $2.99/lb) Produce: Buy what's seasonal (www.localharvest.org to figure out what's seasonal in your area) and find a farmers' market, a lot of local produce will be grown without pesticides and will be even cheaper than conventional at a supermarket.

Good luck!