Take advantage of every sale, is my motto. I do that whether it's for regular store or "specialty" items like low carb foods. What I often do is fill my plate (and use a small plate) three quarters of the way with vegetables. Filling up on veggies will help you less meat overall. Beans are also a good source of protein (not to mention, fiber as well). You will have to see how the amount of carbs they contain fits into your plan, and compares to other choices, but you can substitute beans for other sources of protein, if you'd rather have them than meat.
My go to way of eating low carb without spending a ton is eating large salads as a meal with lots of protein as an ingredient. I make sure to stock up on cheap cuts of meats (my favorite is chicken thighs) when they're on sale and freeze them. Like this week for my lunches to take to work I made a large batch of shredded chicken thighs and hard boiled eggs, and then added them to a salad each day. Canned tuna is another option, but I try not to eat it too often due to mercury concerns.
One thing I would avoid, would be any "discount" or super cheap frozen seafood. Stores like Save-A-Lot sell many of these, like bags of frozen Tilapia and other inexpensive white fish (and shrimp). If you read the label on these many of them are farm raised in China, which is a bad thing, since these farms often feed the fish the waste from the other farm animals, such as chickens and pigs. The other problem is they soak this seafood in solutions to purposefully make them swell up to look much bigger than they really are, which not only destroys the texture of the seafood, but it shrinks down to almost nothing when you cook it, like 1/4th of it's original size. Also, I've had instances where the seafood smelled awful, like it was rotten or something, which made me really uncomfortable about eating it. One relatively inexpensive option would be Turkey sausage, especially if you have any local companies that manufacture their own and sell them at your local grocery stores. Not only is it usually cheap, it's convenient as well since it's already seasoned. Even plain ground turkey is often on sale itself, at a fraction of the price of ground beef.
I am also on a low carb diet. I eat a lot of eggs, cheese, veggies, salads. I have found cauliflower to be a great addition, I mash it like mashed potatoes, eat it raw on salads. Some people even make a type of bread out of it, I haven't tried this yet though. I eat tofu, which is inexpensive, and beans. I eat meat but not every day. I deep fry the tofu in coconut oil and make a dipping sauce with soy, ginger, garlic and some hot sauce. It's very good !
I eat a lot of salad too. I enjoy salad anyway, so it works great for me. I usually add some chicken too. I had my husband throw a pack of chicken on the grill for me the other day, after he cooked hamburgers for everyone. Now I can just grab some as needed. I recently heard about making cauliflower pizza crust, @melbird, but I didn't know about bread. I have heard of eating mashed instead of potatoes as well. Tofu is probably last on my list, although fried with sauce makes it a bit more palatable.
I'm with you.. I eat a lot of carbs and I'm fitter and healthier than ever. We NEED them. It's junk carbs we don't need. And talk about eating cheaply. It seems everyone is swapping out the carbs for fattening foods, I just couldn't eat that way. Even "lean" meat is just packed with fat.. have you seen those factory animals??
I have been on several low carb diets and the way I find it easier to save some money is to have more eggs and chicken, which are the cheapest protein foods. Also, pay attention to vegetables on sales or look for them at markets.
I went looking for some "bread" recipes yesterday after reading your post. I didn't try the cauliflower one yet, but I tried one called clouds. It's made of eggs. It tastes like eggs. I don't know how they call it bread, but bleh, I did not like it. I may still try a cauliflower recipe or two though. I found one for flat bread that uses the cauli and spinach. It sounds pretty good. Man, I really want some bread right now!
