Capitalism is hell so thought it be best we all have a space to both rant a bit and also give each other some insight on how we best get by. Remember that you don't wanna put anything too incriminating or personal since wreckers are always looking for dirt but maybe you can tell us about your "friend".
Mind you this isn't a neoliberal "pull yourself from your bootstraps" comm poverty will not be eliminated by simply making "better" individual choices instead think of this comm as a safe place to vent about surviving under capitalism and a place to share whatever hard earned knowledge you wished you knew of earlier.
Get a vacuum sealer off Craigslist or at Goodwill (trust me, 3 are there right now collecting dust). Save all your old food or, if you choose to live the omnivorous lifestyle, buy reduced meat and freeze it.
Get a pressure cooker (manual ones are relatively cheap; electronic ones are slightly more explensive). It will pay for itself in under a month. 70 cent bag of lentils, stew vegetables, and some leftover/thrifty meat is a week of meals. Also, pressure cookers are nice because they're fairly portable. Take it with you camping if electricity is available. Tangent: learn how to cook with a cast iron skillet.
Speaking of camping: it's the last way to have an affordable vacation. Fuck hotels and airBnB. Whether you have a tent or a van or a towable trailer, camping is the cheapest way to go and stay just about anywhere. For the truly frugal,, watch some YouTube vids on urban camping (I just recently camped out in Pittsburgh - shit was awesome and basically free).
If space permits where you live, get a deep freeze chest freezer for your garage or spare corner.
Shop at Aldi. It's more cost effective than the 99cent store.
Self checkouts at stores are usually where I seem to mistakingly forget to ring up 10-30% of everything I totally intended to buy. Places where I've had the most success: Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and nearly every grocery store. I don't do this at Target because they have on-site security, or Costco because they're about as ethical as a company can be in this hellworld.
If you like whiskey: look for bonded bottles of shitty brands. They're still cheap but taste remarkably better than nearly everything out there including somewas expensive blends. I highly recommend Mellow Corn and Evan Williams Bonded (white label).
It sometimes pays to buy big purchases in states with no sales tax. Similarly, if you know someone in the military or who works government, buying big purchases on base (like a tv) is tax free.
Long term investing (lol I know): fuck stocks. The best investment you can make now is upgrading your house (again, lol) to solar. If you can afford it, your return over 20 or so years will be 5x or more what you buy it for now, not accounting for inflation. There are ways to DIY it, including buying all materials from Harbor Freight and online but it seems you have to be pretty dedicated to do it this way.