For me,pasta is the way to go when youre short on cash and need to go for just the basics. A 1kg packet of spaghetti or macaroni for 75cents,and two 350g packets of tomato sauce for 30cents each. It will keep two average-sized people fed for about half a week(dinner,not including other meal times).
If you want to splash out and add a spicey sausage to cut up and add to it to make it taste great,then that will run you double the price you already payed for just the basics,but beggars cant be choosers.
Also,noodles are easy on the pocket too.
P.S. Im talking in European cents,as in 100 cents to 1 euro,not 100cents to 1 dollar. I dont know how much stuff costs there but the conversion at the moment is roughly 1euro = 1.27dollar,or 1dollar = 0.79euro.