How do I meal plan on a tight budget?

Start from a dollar amount, not a recipe. Decide what you can spend for the week, pick a handful of cheap and repeatable dinners built around beans, eggs, pasta, or in-season produce, then make one shopping list so you only buy what the plan needs. Repeating a couple of meals and cooking once to eat twice cuts both cost and effort. GroceryChef runs this loop for you: set a budget, get a week that fits, move the slider and it rebuilds the plan to match.