About $6/day, Canadian. Only for myself. Not counting energy costs.

The core of it is the stuff you'd expect, at least if you remember older stereotypes of the diets of the poor. But it doesn't have to be just the things that would drive you mad. There's room for quite a bit of variety, really. In fact, there's room to eat out sometimes at my current price level.

I buy a lot of dry food (naturally dry or dehydrated in processing) in bulk: flour, rice, dried fruit (carefully portioned out), legumes (split peas and kidney beans are what I like; I could get others if I wanted), skim milk powder (many culinary uses). Mostly frozen meat (not pre-made things in boxes), or ground meat that I buy in quantity and freeze. Boring old generic cheese in the full-sized bars, not sliced or shredded and definitely not the plastic crap. (I really should get eggs more often. Even at regular prices, which have nearly doubled since 2020 for the most basic offering, they're still reasonably priced for what you get.) Not a whole lot of fresh vegetables, or rather, just starchy ones like carrots and potatoes when they go on sale.

I drink tea that I make myself (I haven't crunched the numbers but I assume homemade drip coffee is comparable). I don't buy pop (er, "soda") and my selection of snack foods is quite limited: generally bottom-shelf generic-brand cookies and biscuits (even then I shop around) and sometimes generic-brand potato chips. I used to get generic-brand ice cream sometimes but those prices have gone way out of control.

And I read the flyers.