Bingo, I buy dry goods in bulk. Soap, rice, flour… cost so little to produce even buying the smaller bulk packages can save a significant portion of your grocery bill. The only stuff I buy from the grocer is perishables and frozen.

A $7 box of pancake mix costs about $1 to make from bulk ingredients.

A 1.30 box of rice-a-roni costs a little over 0.50 cents to make.

Mac and cheese, same deal,

If you can stash a few large bags, or split the cost with your neibors/fam you can cut out a huge chunk of your food cost, end up with stuff that’s healthier and tastier and not locked in to 1 of 4 flavors.

Making pancakes looks like this:

get out a spoon, any small/medium spoon. n heaping spoonfulls of flour, n-2 heaping spoonfulls of sugar, a pinch of salt, 2 if you’re making a more than a few cups. 1 level spoon of baking powder. (2 if you’re feeding an army) Add water and stir until it comes off the spoon in ribbons. Too much water? add a level spoon of flour and mix until it comes off in ribbons.

For waffles, add some oil, another spoon of baking powder, a few drops of vanilla extract.

rice-a-roni is just rice and spaghetti, lightly browned in oil the boiled off with bullion, maybe some light veggies.