Thread: Budget Hunting (pun intended)

So, I've been thinking about this for a while, and it may have been done before, but I scrolled through a fair bit of history and didn't find anything.
Times are reasonably tough for many at the moment and many of us have to stretch the dollar a little further than we'd like. For my household, putting good quality red meat in the diet at a good price (the costs of hunting) has been invaluable and we haven't had to buy red meat in quite some time. My dearest wife is coming around to the fact that hunting is not just a "hobby for the boys" in the family, and that it has some tangible benefits (we all know there are many right!!). She is a great wife, and very low maintenance, spending very little on herself, which is par for the course when you have three kids that include two large teenage boys who are growing out of everything (their backpacks are way too small and I am carrying way too much weight in my pack for a 49 year old)!

So, to get to the point, we can't all spend, or justify spending on the high end gear (even if we'd like to) - the Tatonka pack, with the Thermarest sleeping mat, the Domex Halo sleeping bag, the MSR tent, the Jetboil cooker etc. etc. etc.
Yes, I know that it is often true that "you only get what you pay for"......often, but not always. So, what I'm after here is anything you have found or bought (as a budget conscious hunter) that fits into the category of getting MORE than what you have payed for, so to speak. Things that you have bought at a cost far cheaper than the high end stuff, but has performed well, or well enough.

Thanks.