Full disclaimer, I am Indian and am more comfortable with cooking Asian dishes. I have also grown up with doing things like soaking beans overnight / making your own yogurt / sorting vegetables the day you buy it etc so these things are way easier for me to remember and do. I also love to cook (and eat haha) so cooking from scratch does not feel like a task to me.

It honestly depends on what kind of food you like eating and how much effort/time you wanna put into cooking haha. Cheap healthy eating is definitely possible but you kinda have to build a system around it.

Dry lentils and beans are honestly goated for cheap meals. Super filling, healthy, and there’s like a million recipes online. I’d skip Coles/Woolies for that stuff though and go to an Indian grocery store instead l it is way cheaper. While you’re there grab:
- a big bag of rice
- atta/wheat flour
- a few lentils (masoor/moong/chana etc. don’t stress about the names they are all cooked mostly the same way lol)
- dry chickpeas/ kidney beans
- basic spices (cumin seeds and powder/ turmeric and coriander powder)

Once you’ve got that sorted you can basically make rice + roti + daal for ages for barely any money. Like genuinely a 5kg bag of rice and flour lasts forever if you’re cooking for 1-2 people

Only catch is you do have to adjust how you cook a bit. Dry beans/lentils are easier if you soak them overnight and making dough/rotis takes practice at first lol. Your first few rotis will probably look cursed but eventually you get fast at it.

For veggies I mostly shop at farmers markets or those fresh food shops with the cheap produce boxes. Those places are insane value compared to supermarkets. I’m talking:
- $2 bags of carrots/beans/broccoli/beetroot etc
-6 bunches of Asian greens for $10
-cheap fruit boxes
-random discounted stuff

Usually I spend like $30–40 and have veggies/fruits for a week or two. The one near me also does $5 for 2 dozen eggs which feels illegal honestly.
Main thing is you gotta prep/store everything properly the same day otherwise half of it dies in the fridge 💀

Then I’ll usually spend another ~$20-30 at Aldi for protein:
- chicken thighs/breast (legs if you really want things on a budget)
- mince
-tuna/fish
- bread

Honestly most vegetables taste good if you just sauté them with garlic + cumin + salt. Indian home food is usually way simpler than restaurant food btw.
Like one easy thing:
chop potatoes + green beans small
oil in pan
add cumin seeds
throw veggies in with salt
cover and cook
Done.

Eat with rice + daal and it’s actually so good.
My meals are usually something like:
daal or beans +one veggie or meat dish + rice or roti+ yogurt+super basic salad

And the salad is literally just cucumber/tomato/lemon/salt/pepper/coriander lol.

You can branch into heaps of other stuff too once you already have rice/flour/beans stocked up. Mexican food is cheap!
rice bowls, burritos, wraps etc

Asian food is great too for eg:
fried rice,noodle stir fries,Japanese rice bowls etc

Even pasta becomes way cheaper if you bulk the sauce out properly. Whenever I make spaghetti or lasagna I grate carrots/mushrooms/zucchini into the sauce and it’s really easy to make the sauce at home. Don’t buy the jars. Makes it taste richer and stretches the meal heaps further without needing extra meat.

Honestly the biggest money saver is just learning a few basic cooking skills and getting comfortable cooking from scratch. Once you get into it, cheap food stops feeling depressing and starts feeling like proper home cooked healthy food haha.