You got some good advice, now I'm just going to throw in some light-weight cheap food advice: if you want to save money don't bother with that freeze-dried backpacking food in pouches. Expensive, and I personally don't think it generally tastes good either. If you have a dehydrator, you can make your own stuff cheaply. But if you don't have a dehydrator (I don't), try some of the dry types of soup-in-a-cup products like Nile Spice and Dr McDougall's make. Cheap and light, and taste decent, I think. I usually add some olive oil, maybe a few sun dried tomatoes, a clove of garlic, a bit of cheese, walnuts, whatever, to add some flavor. They also don't require cooking, just add boiling water (though I usually cook them a minute or so). You can also often buy bulk type products like that at health food stores. I also use a lot of powdered instant hummous: just add water and ready to go. I prefer to add a bit of olive oil to it for flavor and eat it on crackers. Pretty cheap.Also you can buy couscous in a box or bulk: cheap, takes no cooking, just add boiling water, salt, and a spoonful of olive oil (are you seeing a pattern here? and let sit. But couscous alone is bland, so it's good to doctor it up with some sort of flavors.