This was my setup when I was on my own saving doing DIY postbac last year. I loved standup writing, so, I think a donated desk and a box can do it just fine. I lived in the basement of my best friend's townhouse, without needing to pay any rent for a year.
Almost 15 years ago, I started my graduate training. Although I did have some money in the bank, every penny was meant for tuition as I had to pay OOS tuition. So I had developed many techniques and skills to save as much money as I can, and that got me through the 2-year program.
My record was to only spend 50 bucks on food for 2 months, so, $25/month. These were the techniques I developed from that time.
1. Make friends who have costco memberships, and go shopping with them. Don't get vegeis here, you won't be able to finish them before they start to go bad. Rather, get some big chunk of meat from here. I particularly love their 10 pounds pork loin which only costs me $25 or so. Right after you get home, cut them into pieces, about the sizes for a meal, wrap them separately with plastic wrap, and put them into the freezer. (I know, plastic wrap isn't really friendly to environment, but now it comes to my survival, I have to do what I have to...) So in the following few weeks, you just get one out every morning before you go out, so that when you return home in the afternoon, it is defrosted. (oh, don't forget the on-sale turkeys after Thanksgiving!)
2. Buy the "on sale" vegies or fruit from near-by budget super markets, OK, I mean Asian super markets. They are super affordable, and you can find other greens you never eat before. Try some out. They are good for you too, and CHEAP! They also often put tofu on sale, and when you see them, go grab some! Make good friends with local Asian super markets (if you live in metropolitan areas where there are sizeable Asian populations). No, I don't mean Japanese supermarkets. They are expensive. Don't go there if you want to save money. (Also, some Asian super markets also serve hot food. If you go there around 19:00-20:00, they often put out the "half-priced" food. I sometime got a lot of them and had them for the rest of the week...)
3. I know most people in the US don't like chicken drumstick. However, I lived on chicken drumsticks in my grad school. They are cheap here (in comparison with other parts of chicken meat). There are so many good recipes to make them delicious. If tired of western recipes, there are many recipes around the world you can choose from too to make them taste differently. (Yes, Asians eat a lot of that....)
4. Make rice your main carb source. They are very cheap and filling! Cook them in a rice cooker. There are a lot of easy recipes for you to make rice and other stuff simultaneously in your rice cooker. What I usually ate at that time for a meal included: a bowl of white rice, a portion of stir-fried pork/a chicken drumstick, and a portion of stir-fried green vegies + fruit. It is quite balanced, isn't it?
5. I signed up the free-food email list, and frequent those events that offered free food. I also did these crazy things: I waited until everyone left, and asked to take home all the left-over. Many of them will be happy to give you the left over as you save their job to clean up and handle the left-over. You will be surprised what you can bring home: one time I took home 3 boxes of untouched pizzas. But mostly, I will break down the food into ingredients, and recombine those ingredients into my own meals. (I took out the greens from salad, rinsed them with water, and stir fried them.)
6. I did dumpster-diving, around Greek houses. This one was quite bad, and I finally got caught and warned not to do it. But I got a lot of good stuff from the dumpsters. The reason I started to do dumpster-diving was that I had some sentiment toward those kids living in Greek houses. To me, those spoiled kids were wasting food while I tried to save every penny on food to make my education work. Yes, they were really wasting food. One time I got out from the dumpster a pumpkin cake. Somebody just bought the cake, had a slice of 1/8, decided that they didn't like the cake, and threw it in the trash can (in the original box). So, I got out the cake, put it into my fridge, and invited my friends over to enjoy the cake (yes I told them it was from the dumpster, and none of my hungry friends cared). I also got a lot of good stuff, such as a bag of (uncooked) noodles, oatmeal, vegeis, fruits and others. I stopped after I got caught. Somebody gave me a written notice, warning me not to search their trash again. Honestly, it was a very humiliating moment. I still keep that notice in my box, and sometime I will take it out, and read it again, to remember those days when I did all of these. Anyway, I don't recommend this, because of food safety issues. But dumpster-diving really gives me first-hand experiences of living under poverty - sometimes you have to put your self-esteem on the shelf just to survive.
Oh, by the way, all of my efforts paid off in the end. Throughout my graduate training (not in medicine), I took out 0 loan, and got out of the schools debt free. =)
