When you're on a limited budget, you've got to be very creative with the meals you prepare.

"If you cook from basic ingredients, things from home, you can still eat really well," said Leanne Brown, author of the new cookbook, Good and Cheap: Eat well on $4/ Day. That's how much someone on the SNAP (food stamps) porogram gets each day for food: $4.

Brown says planning and creativity are key ingredients to successfully stretching your food dollars.

"You want to buy a lot of things in bulk and make a large amount of something and eat it for a few days in a row," she said. "But change it in certain ways and reuse leftovers, so you aren't getting bored with these kinds of things."

For example, if you have leftover chili, add a little rice or put it in a burrito or scramble it with some eggs.

"There's so much that can be done to just change things up," she said.

Brown is a big believer in a home pantry that's stocked with some basic ingredients like flour, rice, dried beans, lentils and spices. Having these ingredients on hand will give you different ways to mix things up a bit.