The only reason I could afford to purchase my first house was because I lived in a place with affordable housing, where almost literally every employed person could afford to purchase a house. My first one cost $37,500. It was very, very hard to come up with $400 per month to pay for it. It wasn't that I was "fortunate." We had no discretionary income at all for years. I don't know what a blue box dinner is. Lentils, oatmeal, dried beans and those sorts of things are affordable and filling, though.