One essential part is to cook/prepare all your own meals
Anything pre prepared is out
I am constantly amazed by the inability of people to cook/prepare meals
I buy in bulk and prepare soups and stews which are then frozen in meal size portions, I do a quick calculation on meal cost when I package, just from the point of sticking to a budget as I tend to eat expensive meat and fish so other meals have to be cheap to balance it out
I would always prefer to have a small barramundi meal than a big shark meal
