Is feeding a single female plus a 6 year old girl (healthily) feasible on 300 bucks a month (I'll only have her half the time)? I've spend so long just not caring because he'd spend the rest of the money anyway that we currently spend a STUPID amount on food/eating out. I am willing to completely cut out dining out and eat practically vegetarian if it gets me out of debt faster.
I'd love to be able to take a part time job on the weeks that I won't have my child, but I have no idea how that would be feasible since I already work full time and I'd only be able to work every other week. Any ideas on additional non-traditional income?
Yes, it really is feasible. With more meatless meals, bulk cooking, and some planning, you can really spend a lot less on food. There are dozens of good resources online that can help you cut your food bill. One place to start: drink plain old tap water. Cokes, juice, milk, bottled teas, coffee...all those are spendy and mostly, full of sugar/empty calories. I watched a tragic documentary about Americans who lost everything due to financial idiocy, and one of the things I noticed is that every time you saw their kitchen it was full of 2-liter cokes, bottled water, energy drinks, etc., completely stupid. I used to drink a lot of soda, but have mostly switched to water. If I really want a flavored drink, I make iced tea at home. It is cheaper than any bottled beverage.
Example of how you can think about cutting your budget and using all your food: Roast a chicken. Eat chicken for a meal or two. Make some sandwiches with the leftovers. Make chicken salad with the rest of the leftovers. Then boil the carcass to make broth, toss in the last of the meat and a package of frozen vegetables, and you have soup. You can eat this for several meals. Getting five or six meals from one chicken is not bad.
Breakfast cereal is expensive. Oatmeal is not. Eat that.
Cutting out meat for several meals a week can help a lot. Beans are nutritious and filling, and inexpensive. Rice and beans, bean soup and cornbread, bean burritos with delicious salsa, as Alton Brown says, Good Eats!