There will be a lot of nights when you come home from work too lazy to make dinner and too broke to order out. Avoid eating frozen meals by whipping up these extremely easy dinners that require minimal time and effort. And keep in mind that the numbers and prices are all rough estimates based on my own shopping experiences.

1. Peanut Butter and Jelly may make you feel like you’re in kindergarten, but the protein in the peanut butter will also fill you up. Do it up right by toasting the bread first and cutting it into triangles. If you assume that peanut butter, jelly, and bread all cost $5 each on average, that’s around $15 for 5 meals.

2. Instant Mac & Cheese will really hit the spot when you’re hungry. Make yourself feel like it’s a gourmet meal by throwing in some vegetables. Estimate the average boxed mac and veggies cost $5 each and that’s a meal and a half for $10.

3. Soup with homemade croutons is one of the fastest and easiest meals to make — assuming you know how to use a can opener.  Grab a slice of bread, sprinkle  it with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Put it into the oven part of the toaster until it’s crisp. Break it up and throw it into the soup. If the average can of soup costs around $2 (and you buy 5) and the average loaf of bread costs $5, that’s $10 for around 5 meals.

4. Pasta with sauce should be a go-to meal when you’re on a budget. It’s cheap and should be bought in bulk whenever you see a sale. Make sure to pick up frozen, pre-cooked meatballs and sausage that you can throw in when the mood strikes. If you find one of the 4 for $5  sales (popular at Morton Williams) you can get 5 jars of sauce and 5 bags of pasta for ten dollars — which comes out to roughly 16 meals for $10.

5. Eggs are one of the most versatile foods you can have in your fridge. You can make everything from omelets to egg salad to fried egg sandwiches to deviled eggs. A carton of 12 eggs is usually around $3.00 so that’s about 6 meals for $3.

The math comes out to 33 “home-cooked” meals for $48 dollars.