One of the best ways to eat well on a budget is to buy produce when it is in season and preserve it for the whole winter. Last week, I spent $20 on 1/2 bushel of beets, an additional $5-10 on other ingredients, and ended up with fourteen jars of pickled beets. Had I preserved all the beets, I would have had 21 jars, making the cost to me a little over $1 per jar. Go try to get such a premium product for that price at the grocer. You can get crummy ones in the $1.30 range, but premium ones are $3-6 per jar.
This episode of Living Free in Tennessee walks through the process of water bath canning and shares my personal pickled beet recipe along with the recipe I inherited from my Great Aunt Helen.