When I want to cook a cheap meal I usually go for something like minced meat and mashed potatoes or minced meat and macaroni. I would sometimes use minced meat with rice too, but my favourite minced meat dish is when mixed with macaroni. I would also use tin stuff, something like corned beef, for instance, which goes well with either cream potatoes or plain rice. Corned beef does not take much seasoning except for some onions, tomato sauce and cayenne pepper, so apart from it being a cheap meal, it is also a very quick meal to prepare. I like salmon also, but this is very expensive where I live, even the canned one.