Making hearty meal for 8$ a day?

Hey there- i came to ask for assistance to build some dish menu and be smart about it.

I have 8$ a day for food in high cost living area to make dish to feed me and my dog. What i want is to build some very hearty non-processed dish i could eat 1 or 2 a day. Same one is fine. If its necessary i can skip few days not in a row and stay on some crackers and tea and put few more bucks towards the dish.

Ive never calculated per meal or per day and not sure how to approach it really. So far ive calculated that i can eat 1 apple a day and 1 orange a day. Which makes 30 apples and 30 oranges. There are maybe 5 apples a bag and 4.50$ a bag. Makes about .90c and for orange ill have to research how many there but i might need skip orange. sometimes i can buy grapes at 2$ on sale but its irregular.

I think for dish to can add some lentils, beens, beef, quinoa, oats, spinach, sweet potatoes, chicken, tomatoes, ...

For my dog i can make some cheap beef, chicken, lentils or garbanzo, sweet potatoes, rice, spinach ,...

I can get beef on sale, chicken not, just to have small portion a dish. I can buy some frozen fish but idk if its going to be cost effective. I wont use can tuna, had it more than enough in recent months, plus apparently eating some fish often accumulates mercury in body so i want to avoid that. I can flavor dish with some pickled beets (2$ a jar and probably last jar for 5 days), ..not sure what else..? Beens/lentils are few bucks each without sale. I can buy some dry sweet potatoes at 15.50$ a jar and it will give me about 14 servings.

I am not looking to have just some cheap carbs to get full, I prefer to have small but hearty meal instead. I realized that don’t wanna eat rice atm, i think I’ve eaten it too much plain and super tired but ill cook it for my dog. Quinoa is expensive but its totally worth it for nutrients. For dog food ill create my own blend so i don’t need your expertise here, just to figure out how to approach the cost. Ideally ill cook same ingredients in bulk and then mix them with spices/herbs for me and plain for her, expect hers will be less ingredients and her meat will be more cheaper and ill cook separate. I can make sauce - i dont know what sauce i like. have some tahini and lemon concentrate, i don’t know if i like tahini much, but i might of added a little. I can buy some stir fry sauce but it will b expensive (almost 5 $ a bottle) and also might have some bad ingredients. So i guess i need to research on some cheap hearty sauces.

I don’t want to think about food or cooking or planning throughout days, i want to have one dish precooked and keep repeating it maybe with some variations and not worry about anything. I can rotate some ingredients maybe and substitute them.

Im not too crazy about kcal but its prob good to keep an eye so i get some decent amount. Im planning to just have 2 regular size meals a day, and 1 cooked meal a day for dog ( she’ll have kibble for 2nd). I can find online some servings size and calories - like cup cooked red lentils 230 kcal, cup cooked oats 154 kcal, cup cooked quinoa 222 kcal, cup cooked garbanzo 269 kcal, etc

For dog treats i can mix little peanut butter for smell with coconut oil, and ground oats, and roll many tiny rolls. I can also freeze mixed cooked ground meat on sale with pumpkin puree (i have few cans) and have her for licking experience. One pack of ground turkey prob go for 4$ the cheapest ( they had 2 dollar sale but i missed that). But i can really stretch it out. I know its probably way more than 8$ a day but i figured the more thought process and preferences i discussed the better advice i could receive.

Now how to put it all together to make approx for certain cost per meal? Any thoughts so far on my thought process?

Ps. idk if i sounded mean with very direct sentences - it might be mix of language /being more straight forward character/ and having this mindset right now. It definitely sounded dry. I promise im not mean lol