Potatoes are a good meal stretcher, either baked and stuffed, or fried with onions and garlic or mashed and whipped with some cooked carrots added. These are colorful, and again, not a budget breaker. A potroast is very down-homey, with potatoes and carrots cooked with it, and you can uually find these on sale. Once in a while, splurge with steak, but maybe round steak, which, if cooked slowly, will be fit for a king. In some cases, if you make the gravy from the drippings in the pan after browning, you can have gravy and potatoes.
Vegetables are good, fresh or frozen, and served with a sauce or just butter and salt and papper.
It's also good at times to have a stick of real butter around. The old standby, tuna casserole, can be dolled up with cheese crackers and white sauce and served with good dill pickles and a bread of some kind. Hot dogs can be great, with a slice of cheese inside, or wrapped in canned crescent rolls with a side of chili. On a cold winter night, put three or four cans of soup together and serve in a big toureen. Be creative and choose different soups.