Is this something you struggle with ? I do. Poor motivation/organising and planning/very limited cooking skills all come into play for me .
Asking about budgeting is always tricky as often it involves advice from people who are good cooks and organisers/planners and have skills way above your level of competence. They will go into elaborate details of how they prepare ultra economical meals for the week/ month and I am left thinking but how does that help me with much more limited skills?
I wish there was somewhere that kept it simple for people with limited abilities/skills when it came to food budgeting/cooking/organising and planning.
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Cooking isn’t hard, you just have to try… I’m not good but I can follow a recipe and it usually turns out fine. And if it doesn’t then you will learn.
But food budgeting is worse. 
Are you willing to try new things? I make a lot of lentils because they’re super cheap and pretty easy to make. You just put the dry lentils in a pot with water and boil them until the water is gone (maybe 30-45 minutes?). Then you can add whatever.
But they’re really cheap and filling and a good source of protein and fiber.
As for planning I’m AWFUL. I’m even worse at grocery shopping. Even if I go in with a huge list of things and ideas, I’ll end up leaving with three things. I try, but I never seem to get better at it.
What kinds of foods do you like? Maybe we can give you some ideas.
I like fish and meat but it’s expensive. Also like fruit, most veg(not broad or butter beans) and rice, I am not keen on beans, lentils and pulses but if I have any of them it will be beans.
I am very much a one/two receptacle cook ie frying pan/large saucepan/casserole dish/microwaveable dish and need it to be simple ie not too many steps to prepare and cook, not heavy on the ingredients.
I’ll look for some recipe ideas and get back to you.
But one thing I do to save a bit of money (not much, but some) and save time when I don’t feel like doing much food prep, is I buy my meat in bulk/big packs. Then I just bake it all at the same time and freeze it in individual ziplock bags. That way if I want to use a chicken breast I don’t have to bother cooking it and I can use the 10 minutes I feel up to spending on food prep for other things. Though this does require me to be up to cooking it when I buy it. But it’s a lot easier to cook all of it once than each piece individually since it takes pretty much the same amount of time. Then I just take a piece out of the freezer the night before or in the morning and it’s ready for dinner.
Oh, also, this site is sometimes useful for anyone that has a bunch of random ingredients that they don’t know what to do with. Some of the recipes are absolute ■■■■, but some of them are alright.
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