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Im on fixed income at the moment so: Meat, eggs, and unfortunately most fresh produce at this point. I’m doing what I can to grow my own, but there’s a huge project in need of doing before I can really hit the ground on it. I have a small flock of chickens for eggs, and sometimes raise quail for meat (I’m too poor to be vegan/vegetarian; the birds turn waste into eggs and muscle, I give them as good a life as I can, and slaughter humanely with neutral gas when the time comes), but mostly I just eat shelf-stable stuff that I can buy bulk and cheap.
And since food is a struggle, I also don't really buy anything else anymore. Too expensive to justify.
Special secret: grocery store dumpsters are often full of perfectly good fresh produce -- and I mean full. And in most states, it's perfectly legal to take some. Learn the ways of the dumpster, and you'll eat like a king.
Except for the fact that it can be dangerously unsanitary. At my store we sometimes throw produce into the same bag that our bathroom trash gets emptied into. There are toilet paper rolls that were used to clean syringes in there and everything.
Not to mention sometimes the syringes themselves...
If you have to eat that way I get it, but that should be last resort.
You need to learn the ways of the dumpster:
A) Find the good dumpsters. Some grocery stores have 'compost only' dumpsters, and those are an absolute gold mine. Those ones will be full of food and only food.
B) Of course you need to wash everything thoroughly before eating it. And don't take (unwrapped, unsealed) things that can't be washed.
C) Follow your nose. Billions of years of evolution have actually equipped you pretty well when it comes to determining which food is and isn't safe to eat. If it looks good and smells good, it probably is good. Add a bit of common sense and looking out for signs of a few of the more dangerous things -- like botulism -- and you're pretty well safe. Also pay attention to recent recalls -- if the store is throwing away lots of the same thing, and none of it is expired yet, check for recalls on that product before eating it. (And look at why it was recalled. Recalled stuff is sometimes still perfectly safe to eat. Lots of recalls happen for reasons such as the product being mislabeled and not mentioning an allergen that might be present. In that case, as long as you're not allergic to that particular thing, you're good.)
I've never once gotten sick from eating dumpster food. IMO, unless you have some specific health condition that puts you at higher risk, you're very unlikely to have problems.
i used to go to store and university bathrooms to get rolls of toilet paper for myself.
our hides it behind a special yard, and they do mostly donate it to banks.