puff pastry, i great cheese over for a cheep lunch/snack also sausage mince is only $2-$3 and if you already have pastry, then easy and cheep sausage rolls!
noodles
spam (i love spam!)
flour sugar and butter, if i have the cake basics then i can whip up some cup cakes or cookies to tide the kids over between meals as day snacks
soup cans (chunky hinez ones)
tins of spaghetti (spaghetti on toast, yum)
pasta and the spaghetti sauce cans (near dolmioes but already has meat in the can, saved us a tight-ass/lazy week a few times!!)

basicaly anything on the shelf that you would normaly eat but can sit in the pantry for a while.
(there is NOTHING wrong with the odd night of cerial or 2 min noodles for dinner, least ur eating!)