Rose City Receipts: How Bryan from Montavilla Feeds 2 For a Week For Under $175

Hi, reader,

Welcome to Rose City Receipts, a new feature of Stumptown Savings where Portlanders take us inside their grocery shopping and meal planning strategies. Portland's food scene is legendary, but figuring out how to enjoy it without breaking the bank can feel like an unsolvable mystery. With food costs on the rise, Rose City Receipts by Stumptown Savings aims to inspire and motivate by showing you how one of your neighbors is making it work.

Today, I'm kicking us off with the first edition! I tracked a week of our shopping, meals out, and meals cooked to give you a sense of how I make my grocery budget work.

Meet Our Shopper

Who are you? Bryan, the founder/publisher of Stumptown Savings
Where do you live? Montavilla
What's your weekly grocery budget (roughly)? $150
How many people are you shopping for? Two (my wife and I)
What are your favorite stores? New Seasons is my usual go-to for produce and meat, Fred Meyer for most other things, and WinCo for spices and bulk goods.
What's your top priority when it comes to grocery shopping? Product selection and quality

Bryan's Shopping Philosophy

My grocery shopping habits and philosophy are a bit weird (as you might expect from someone who writes about groceries full-time). I am picky about which products I buy. For example, I find that of the major stores in town, New Seasons has the best produce and meat, so that's where I do most of that shopping. But WinCo has the best spice selection and sells them in bulk so I can buy as much (or as little) as I need, so I go there for a lot of pantry staples. Fred Meyer is the most convenient for a mix of everything, so I wind up there pretty often too.

It's not unusual for me to go to two or three stores in one trip. I know I'm driving a few of you crazy by admitting that, but it's true. For me, it all comes down to getting the specific groceries I want at the quality/price that feels right for each item.

Bryan's Grocery Diary

Weekly total: $163.92

Eating out total: $64. 11
Groceries total: $99.81 

Most expensive meal or purchase: Our roadtrip stop at Meconi′s Italian Subs, which cost $37.84 (but we technically stretched it into four meals!)
Least expensive meal or purchase: 13 lbs. Of Starbucks coffee grounds I got for free as garden fertilizer!
Number of grocery trips: 1
Number of meals out: 2
Stores visited: 1

Monday

We headed up to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the weekend to visit my wife's family, and spent the bulk of the day Monday driving back. Taking a cross-border road trip with two large dogs and an EV takes time, so we were on the road for about 8 hours that day. We stopped at a Fred Meyer in Bellingham while charging to get some cold drinks ($2.17), then around 6 p.m. we ordered takeout from Meconi's Italian Subs in Lacey, Washington, for dinner which we ate while charging again (EVs on road trips force you to slow down).

We got four half-subs: a meatball (DIVINE!), a club (solid), a Philly cheese steak (thick perfectly cut chunks of steak), and a hot Italian sub (more on this in a bit). Plus a small tub of potato salad. It wasn't cheap, but we managed to stretch it into two meals, as we only ate about half of what we ordered (didn't even get to the Italian sub).

Monday total: $40.01

Tuesday

Unfortunately, we both got sick on the trip. So we woke up Tuesday in the full effects of nasty colds. We barely had appetites and just ate small breakfasts. My wife made herself some toast, I had some unsweetened applesauce. For lunch, we had our leftovers from Meconi's. And for dinner, we made soup and ramen from our pantry.

Tuesday total: $0

Wednesday

We were both still pretty sick (my wife more so than me), so Wednesday wound up being another day of mostly eating at home. We both made simple breakfasts of food from our pantry, then had soup and ramen for lunch again.

We were bad for dinner: neither of us had energy to cook and we caved and ordered McDonald's ($24.10) — a Big Mac meal for my wife, a Quarter Pounder with cheese meal for me — because it was cheap, quick, and we could get it delivered.

Wednesday total: $24.10

Thursday

Both still feeling crummy, it was another day of hanging around the house making our fridge and pantry work for us. I made some chicken and wild rice soup from scratch in the Instant Pot (no recipe, I just improvised it) that we had for lunch.

For dinner, I decided to eat more of the soup, but my wife got some inspiration and whipped up a simple but delicious pasta dish with some shells, butter, manzanilla olives, garlic and chili flakes. She added some frozen shrimp to hers, and then gave me a small bowl of it without the shrimp (I only eat white fish — I'm picky, remember?). It was a delicious meal that didn't require a lot of time or effort.

Thursday total: $0

Friday

Friday was more of the same. I actually wound up not eating breakfast — just wasn't hungry. For lunch, we polished off the soup. Then, feeling slightly better I threw on a mask and hit up our local Fred Meyer to take advantage of some of the deals I'd highlighted in Stumptown Savings the day before. I managed to save nearly $48 on two heaping bags of groceries using sales and digital coupons, including 7 pounds of USDA Grade A tri-tip roasts with the buy one, get one free offer Freddy's was having.

For dinner, we kept with our practice of raiding our pantry/freezer. My wife whipped up some frozen Trader Joe's scallion pancakes, tossed some frozen all-breast meat chicken nuggets from Costco in the toaster oven, and I took two leftover cucumbers that were hanging in our crisper drawer and whipped up a simple Asian cucumber salad that's been a go-to for years.

Friday total: $99.81

Weekend

Saturday, we made some pancakes for breakfast, then we had half a frozen pizza and a salad for lunch. Thankfully, while still feeling under the weather, I had enough energy to whip up the oven-roasted tri-tip recipe I had shared with readers earlier in the week. I did tweak it a bit: Since we were home all day, I opted to cook the tri-tip low and slow at about 250°F, cranking up the oven to 425°F once the roast was done and resting to cook the broccoli. I also decided to get weird with the diced avocado salsa and turn it into a sauce, mixing in some tomatoes, New Mexican green chile, and a few other ingredients. The tri-tip and broccoli were amazing. The sauce? Not so much. Ha, but you can't win them all.

There were enough leftovers that we didn't have to cook at all Sunday! Leftover pancakes and some fruit for breakfast. The other half of the frozen pizza and salad for lunch. For dinner, we repurposed the leftover tri-tip into our own version of the famous Rip City Grill steak sandwiches. We toasted some fresh sub rolls with Tillamook cheddar, diced up some gently reheated steak, layered it on the roll with barbecue sauce and pickled jalapeños. It was DELISH! And the best part? We had enough leftover tri-tip to let us make these sandwiches two more times over the coming days.

Weekend total: $0

🔍 Bryan’s Shopping Tips

The bulk of my savings this week honestly came thanks to the Thursday Stumptown Savings weekly deals newsletter. If not for that, I wouldn't have known about the BOGO offer on the tri-tip roasts. Combining that with the digital coupons in Fred Meyer's app really added up. Taking some time to develop a plan allowed me to get what I needed at a great price, and get out of the store in under 30 minutes!

🍽️ From My Table

I was pumped to finally make this over the weekend! My wife absolutely loves tri-tip (Rip City Grill got her hooked on its tri-tip sandwiches back in the day) so I try to make her tri-tip a few times a year. The great thing about tri-tip is we usually get three or more meals out of it.

First, the dinner we make it for. Then for our own take on those famous Rip City Grill sandwiches — grab a sub roll, layer on thick slices of tri-tip roast, cover with cheese and BBQ sauce, plus any other toppings you like — enjoy! 🤌

Want to be featured in Rose City Receipts? Email [email protected] and share your grocery shopping approach!

Happy saving!

Bryan M. Vance,
Founder/Publisher,
Stumptown Savings