If you eat a lot of pasta I would recommend learning some simple sauce recipes. Tomato sauce is probably the cheapest, and it's basically a can of whole tomatoes, half an onion, some garlic, and some herbs. Cream sauces might be cheaper to buy canned, but you can make those with some cream, onions, garlic, and Parmesan cheese.
Other than that it looks like you're making good choices. The system just sucks ass. I hope your next trip is more fruitful.
Just wanted to second this. Learning to use a roux as a base saves me so much money and effort. A bit of butter(or any oil) and flour makes any creamy sauce/soup/stew you'd like. Add milk, broth, spices, garlic, cheese... The skies the limit and it's a lot cheaper than cream or cream cheese, and I always have it in the house.