How do you only spend 20 a week on food, Russ? That works out to about 0.93 per meal, I would love to see what an average week of meals looks like for you so I can get some ideas:)
Pretty much all I eat is vegetables, beans, nuts, and rice, with occasional fruit, dairy, and meat. It's pretty cheap if you only buy what's on sale and get beans and rice in bulk. I also don't mind eating the same thing all the time.
But if you're still curious, an average week of food is:
Breakfast
-handful of peanuts at the desk M-F
-sleep on the weekends
Lunch
-whatever was for dinner the day before M-F
-usually the same on the weekends, but sometimes I make warm berries and heavy cream if I'm feeling saucy
Dinner
-a bunch of stuff (mostly vegetables and beans), chopped up, sauteed, and seasoned however I feel like, over rice
Dessert, if I feel like it
-homemade whipped cream, various flavors
Snacks
-rice and oil... this is surprisingly good and very filling, try it! I recommend peanut oil
Things I keep in the pantry:
onions
potatoes
spices
rice (bulk)
quinoa (bulk)
oils (bulk)
dried or canned beans & lentils (bulk)
frozen broccoli
frozen corn
frozen berries (in winter... in summer fresh berries are actually less expensive)
meat (only buy on sale, freeze for later)
lightly salted peanuts
heavy cream
plain yogurt
and sometimes I'll buy a vegetable like green peppers or carrots for something special
$20 isn't a
strict budget, just the average of what I've been spending recently. Some weeks I'm over, like when there's a good sale on meat. The past couple of weeks there hasn't been anything to stock up on, so I've hovered around $15.
It probably helps that I don't eat much. Slow metabolism, I guess. This also doesn't include eating out, which is once or twice a week. That comes from the fun money.