How a Sabin Family of 4 Manages a $250/Week Grocery Budget

Hi, {{first__name | reader}},

Welcome back to Rose City Receipts by Stumptown Savings, a feature that gives Portland-area residents a peek into how others balance grocery shopping and eating out while sticking to a budget.

In this week’s installment, Sabin residents Chris and Kelsey discuss how they manage their household budget — a challenge given Chris’ frequent travel as an employee for a cargo airliner and their two young daughters. Their key to success is adopting themed days for meal planning, which effectively lessens decision fatigue while maintaining necessary flexibility.

Who are you? I’m Chris, a captain at a large cargo airline, Kelsey is a former social worker who is staying home full-time to care for (and homeschool!) our two daughters, ages 6 and 4.
Where do you live? Sabin
What’s your weekly grocery budget (roughly)?: $250 / week
How many people are you shopping for?: 4 (2 adults, 2 kids)
What are your favorite stores?: Fred Meyer, Trader Joe’s, H Mart, New Seasons
What’s your top priority when it comes to grocery shopping?: Convenience, finding better-quality ingredients while staying within budget

Usually, our primary focus is on keeping things easy and staying within our budget. While I will help with grocery runs when I’m home, Kelsey makes good use of Fred Meyer’s grocery pickup feature, putting items into her app as she thinks of them and using any coupons available. It’s a huge help when the girls are extra busy or homeschool is taking longer than expected. We use a budgeting program (YNAB) to keep track of our spending, so we know at a glance if we have to wait a couple of days or trim down our cart.

For meal planning, we try to keep things very simple for breakfast (cereal, eggs, bacon, PB&J) and lunch (leftovers, ramen [shoutout to the Shin Black 4-pack!], simple sandwiches) and have a “theme” night for dinners during the week.

Weekly total: $301
Eating out total: $105
Groceries total: $196
Most-expensive line item: $57 for 3-lbs. of coho salmon
Least-expensive line item: $1.99 for Barilla spaghetti
Number of grocery trips: 3 (one big one, and a couple for just an item or two)
Number of meals out: 2
Stores visited: Fred Meyer, Flying Fish Co., Whole Foods

Monday is “Pasta Night”, and Kelsey made a quick stop at Fred Meyer on the way home from an appointment since we realized we were short on a couple of ingredients for carbonara. We make ours with bacon, and it’s an easy dish that everyone in the house enjoys.

Monday total: $7

Tuesday is “Taco Tuesday,” and we’ll usually do tacos or taco bowls with ground beef, onions, lettuce / baby spinach, and sour cream or salsa.

Tuesday total: $0

Wednesday is usually our catch-all day. We’ll do Asian-style dishes (see the ‘egg roll in a bowl’ recipe below for an example), soups/stews during cooler days, or mishmash dishes with whatever needs to be used up before going bad.

This week was pretty unusual, however, as my parents had the girls and allowed Kelsey and I to take advantage of a little date night. We went to Quesabrosa, a really solid Mexican food cart on N Williams Ave. (Their guacamole is EXCELLENT.)

Wednesday total: $49

Thursday is our usual night to eat out. Kelsey and I loved exploring Portland’s restaurants and food cart pods before the kids came along, and we’re slowly trying to get the girls acclimated to joining us and being more adventurous … but we end up doing Café Yumm! and Burgerville fairly often, too.

This week was Fat Milo’s, a great “breakfast all day” place and a very welcome addition to the neighborhood. I got a breakfast sandwich with chorizo, Kelsey greatly enjoyed the bourbon french toast, and the girls got pancakes and chicken strips. We really like that the kids’ menu is very reasonably priced, and the portions are such that we usually end up with a little bit of food to take home for the next day’s lunch.

Thursday total: $56

Fridays are usually our “Pizza and Movie Night,” and Kelsey makes a simple pepperoni pizza from scratch in our oven while the girls pick a movie to watch.

I got a pellet smoker (the Weber Searwood) during a recent sale, so I’ve enjoyed learning how to smoke different meats. Smoked salmon is one of my favorite things, and I picked up some good Columbia River coho from Flying Fish Company on East Burnside to smoke over the weekend. It’s a splurge, but I generally try to get at least two meals out of whatever I make.

Friday total: $57

Kelsey got her grocery run done for the week, and I had to make a run in the evening to our closest store (Whole Foods) to quickly grab a couple of missing ingredients to make a dip with our leftover salmon. The girls enjoy helping Kelsey bake, so she made a raspberry swirl cake with a recipe from a blog that she subscribes to, Simple Seasons. Everyone in the house likes it, and it doesn’t turn out too “cake-y”, so it works for breakfast as well as a nice snack.

Weekend total: $132

While Kelsey would love to be one of those moms on social media that has everything together or can effortlessly get super creative with meal planning, we’re just not those people and allowing ourselves to just be “normal” has been freeing. 

We’ve found that having theme nights helps free us from spending too much time or energy figuring out what to have or make. If we’re feeling more creative, we’ll try something new inside the theme, and if we’re exhausted, there are a couple of easy standbys for every night.

We have used this recipe dozens of times over the last few years, and we like it because it’s EASY. And not misleadingly “easy” like some cooking sites like to brag, but honest-to-goodness, just stir-things-in-a-hot-pan-for-a-short-while easy. The hardest part is cutting up an onion. We usually serve this over rice, and it’s quite filling. 

I want to hit on what Chris said about meal planning for a minute. Don’t fall for the Instagram trap that you have to be cooking elaborate meals, or cook a completely different dish every day of the week. As we explained in the Stumptown Savings guide to meal planning, embracing strategies like themed nights and working within your time constraints are two solid strategies that can make or break a successful meal plan. 

Also, I’m so impressed with Chris’ smoked salmon. I bought a Komado grill a few years ago and have enjoyed learning how to smoke meats and veggies. My all-time favorite is smoked turkey. Something about a slow smoking process brings out the BEST in flavor and texture of turkey.

Want to show off your strategy to grocery shopping, meal planning, and eating out? Email me for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Rose City Receipts!

Happy saving!
Bryan,
Founder/Publisher,
Stumptown Savings