If I get to cook past for myself (and I'll get to next weekend), it's like this:
A pound of Barilla pasta.
A jar of sauce
pound of ground beef
half pound of Italian sausage
half pound of button mushrooms, sliced
a medium sweet/Vidalia onion, sliced thin
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Basil, oregano, and Italian parsley
Bottle of red wine
Brown the meat in a deep fry pan. Set aside the meat and carmelize the onion. Add the garlic. After a few minutes, add mushrooms. Add the herbs. Deglaze with a cup or so of the red wine (save the rest for drinking). Add the jar of sauce and stir. Add in the browned meat. Set to simmer with a lid on. Start heating the pasta water, and let the meat sauce simmer while the water heats and you cook the pasta. Toss cooked pasta with the sauce.
I started doing this in law school around once a month when I got paid. I would buy double what I listed above and cook it up together, usually on a Sunday afternoon. I would put half of the finished sauce in a container and freeze it, mix up half with the a pound of the fresh cooked pasta. I'd eat half, and put half in the fridge, which became dinner on Tuesday (or Tuesday and Wednesday, depending on how much I ate along the way). I'd get four+ meals out of what was generally $20-25 worth of ingredients, which is good eating on a poor student budget.