How a Clark County Mom Feeds Her Family With a $250 Grocery Budget and a Backyard Garden

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Welcome back to Rose City Receipts, where Portland-area residents take us inside their strategies for balancing grocery shopping, eating out, and staying on budget. Want to be featured in a future Rose City Receipts? Let me know!

Today, we hear from Adriana from Clark County, Washington. She knows lots of secret nooks and crannies in the area (like tiny farms that grow amazing food) because she’s the founder and host of “I’m Into This Place,” Clark County’s only podcast about arts, culture & heritage (find it & subscribe on any podcast platform!). Adriana walks us through how she balances shopping for her busy family of three, while building a podcast and covering Southwest Washington’s vibrant arts and culture scene! 

Who are you? Adriana Baer
Where do you live? Ridgefield, Washington
What’s your weekly grocery budget (roughly)?: $250 for groceries, $100 for eating out
How many people are you shopping for?: 3 (2 adults and an 8-year-old)
What are your favorite stores?: Trader Joes, Chuck’s Produce, Fred Meyer, Natural Grocers
What’s your top priority when it comes to grocery shopping?: Good produce and organic protein

We try to mostly eat whole foods and kind of simple meals, so we generally keep the pantry stocked with dried beans, rice, cans of tuna, etc. Then we harvest from our relatively large veggie garden and orchard trees. We usually do one big shop per week, but we will also stop at stores throughout the week if we need something specific. We try to only buy what we’re going to eat — we’re really careful about food waste so we’d rather take more trips to the store than buy a bunch of things we might not get to throughout the week.  It seems like no matter how much meal planning we do, our schedule always changes!  

My husband and I both work from home, though I’m on the go for podcast interviews and meetings a few times a week. I always have to-go travel mugs, jars of smoothies, and bags of fruit/veggies/nuts rolling around my car.

Weekly total: $380.88
Eating out total: $150.17
Groceries total: $230.71
Most-expensive line item: $11.49 (organic decaf coffee on sale)
Least-expensive line item: $0.99 (can of organic beans)
Number of grocery trips: 7
Number of meals out: 4
Stores visited: Natural Grocers, Fred Meyer, Trader Joes, New Seasons

We shopped on Sunday afternoon for everything we thought we’d need for the week. That was a trip to Natural Grocers, Fred Meyer, and Trader Joes. I wanted to be really thorough and also do a little price comparison this week, so I stuck Natural Grocers in there. Usually we just go to Freddies and TJs since they are across the street from each other.

We grow a lot of our own produce during the summer, so I’m not buying very much produce at these stores right now, and I don’t buy much from farmer’s markets either. (Though I love them so much — you should come visit the Vancouver Farmer’s Market some time. It’s huge and incredible and open Saturday and Sundays year round.)  This week, I got eggs and goat milk from our neighbors.

I’m gluten-free, so I have to spend a little bit more on breads, etc. When I have extra time, I try to make my own gluten-free crackers, granola, etc. at home, but honestly that’s pretty rare these days.

I try to buy things in bulk and on sale when I see them, and we always keep dried beans and rice on hand, so we had a lot of staples in the pantry, but I was out of a few specialty things that made the budget go up a bit this week.  My favorite coffee was on sale, so I grabbed three bags of that, and also we needed fish sauce, which I buy once every two years or so 😂

Sunday total: $148.22

I had a packed day with a few meetings and some filming for my podcast, so I brought a smoothie and some veggies and hummus with me so I could eat on-the-go. 

In the garden, the thing we have the most of right now is blueberries!  So that features heavily right now.

Breakfast was a yogurt bowl and coffee. The yogurt bowl featured:

Coffee is something I will always spend a little extra on. I need those good beans … and I drink a LOT of coffee. I usually drink it with a splash of organic half-and-half. This week I had fresh goat milk from my neighbor, so I used that.

For lunch, I made a smoothie (my go-to recipe is below) and had carrots/hummus/crackers on hand for snacks.

I make my own hummus from bulk beans I cook from dried or canned if I don’t have time. It’s just beans, tahini, garlic (we grow our own and then store for use throughout the year), lemon juice, cumin, and salt.

The carrots are from our garden, and we’re harvesting them pretty frequently now. They last a long time (like months) if you store them properly in the fridge.

I like to make iced matchas at home on summer afternoons, so I use a really nice matcha we got from Costco (!!) mixed with some soy milk.

My husband is a really good left-overer. He’ll either eat what we had for dinner last night or make toast and eggs or a salad from whatever we have in the fridge. Rinse and repeat.

Kid stuff: 

For dinner, my husband has a standing Monday evening commitment, so it was just my kid and I for dinner. We ate leftovers from the weekend — some rice, tofu, and veggies from this cold tofu recipe I learned about through the podcast “Food Friends” (one of the hosts is local!)

Monday total: $0

For breakfast, I had a smoothie (same as yesterday) and a piece of gluten-free toast. 

My go-to lunch:

My kid had the same breakfast and lunch as Monday.

We went to the WNBA Team Name Announcement Party at the Moda Center Tuesday, and since sitting in traffic on Interstate 5 North is terrible any time of year, but especially when it’s a hot summer night, we planned to go to one of our favorite NE Portland spots: La Bonita! We love them because they are a family-owned restaurant that supports local nonprofits (especially arts organizations). They actually catered our wedding!  We treated my uncle to dinner, so four of us ate. Dessert was at Kate’s Ice Cream on North Williams.

Tuesday total: $73.08

Breakfast and lunch were the same as Tuesday

Dinner was Trader Joe’s chicken apple sausages and salad.

Wednesday total: $0

Breakfast was yogurt & berries again.

For lunch, I ended up needing to grab food between meetings, so I went to The Mighty Bowl in Vancouver. It’s a good, organic bowls spot …  but a little pricey: $15 + tip for lunch.

For a snack, I got a drink and pastry from Kirari West, a gluten-free bakery on NW 23rd in Portland. 

My husband did a small shop at Trader Joe’s.

For dinner, we swung by New Seasons after a doctor’s appointment for a “car snack dinner” while we sat in terrible traffic! 

Thursday total: $65.95

For breakfast, I had toast, nut butter, and homemade plum jam. Then I had a coffee date at Prince Coffee with my college roommate. I treated her. 

I had a lunch meeting I charged to my business account. 

For dinner, I had wine and appetizers (all things I already had in the house) with a neighbor and the others ate a “snack dinner” of things we had in the fridge. 

Friday total: $21

Saturday breakfast was the same as always.

We got lunch from New Seasons between events, then grocery shopped at Freddies and Trader Joe’s for a few things. 

I had dinner out with a friend at The Bye & Bye in NE Portland.

Sunday was a home day — gathering plums and blueberries, harvesting carrots, etc. We had a simple salad for dinner.

Weekend total: $72.63

The biggest tip I have is just to buy what’s in season. This isn’t groundbreaking by any means, but it results in cheaper and much more delicious produce. Even better if you can get it from the person who grows it (less packaging and carbon emissions getting the food from the farm to the store) — they’ll know exactly what’s in season and also how to cook it. There’s also a lot of wisdom in eating what nature is giving us right now … it’s better for our bodies overall.

This is my go-to in-season smoothie recipe:

When I first asked Adriana if she’d be up for writing a Rose City Receipts, she mentioned she grows a lot of her own food in the summer. But wow, I wasn’t expecting her to basically have a mini farm! Growing your own food not only saves you time and money on grocery shopping, but it allows you to eat seasonally and as Adriana noted, reduce your carbon footprint. 

Many Portlanders don’t live in homes with big lots, but you can grow food just about anywhere, even in an apartment with no patio. I’ve grown green onions and romaine in jars in years past, and I’ve always had success growing tomatoes and sweet peppers in containers. There’s something special about making a dish mostly with food you grew yourself. 

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