You need to figure out your food and stupid crap budgets . One recommendation I can make is ground meat . You can get store brand for usually a few bucks a pound or a club store for much cheaper . With it you have a ton of options . You can make tacos many different ways , cottage pies , burgers , meat loaf , nachos , soups , etc . If you really don ' t mind the taste you can get turkey ground and it ' s even cheaper . Did this for a while during my single life . Potatoes veggies ground meat spices makes for a pretty good meal plus you can make multiple days and freeze it to save time . If you were near Austin I would hook you up with a few pounds of pork chops and deer meat that was chilling in my freezer from last season As for your phone depending on the model you could get it unlocked to work on some gsm carriers . As a last resort if you can I would get out of the plan and get on something else . Verizon is heck expensive .