Why I Created Stumptown Savings
Hi, I’m Bryan! I’m the founder, publisher, and sole employee of Stumptown Savings.
Grocery price stress is real. If you’ve ever felt a knot in your stomach watching the total climb at the checkout counter, you are not alone. Across the Portland metro area, from Canby to Vancouver, families are feeling the squeeze of relentlessly rising food costs. For me, this fight became personal on the morning of March 27, 2025.
After more than a decade working in local journalism, I was laid off. Suddenly unemployed, I was forced to get serious about my own budget, starting with my grocery spending. That’s when it hit me. What if I could use my journalistic skills — researching, verifying, and sharing information — to help my entire community navigate this challenge? And so, Stumptown Savings was born!
My mission is twofold: first, to help you spend less on groceries, and second, to connect you with our region’s amazing local food producers without breaking the bank. I want to transform how we shop, making quality, local food accessible to everyone.
This is more than just a list of deals. As Axios Portland noted, Stumptown Savings is about building a community around how our food is grown, raised, and purchased. I do this through features like the Portland Egg Price Tracker, in-depth guides to mastering stores like WinCo, and the Rose City Receipts series, where real Portlanders (and suburbanites) share how they make their budgets work.
The response has been incredible, and the stories I hear from readers are what keep me going. One person told me they saved $95 on steaks using a coupon from the newsletter. That’s a real-world impact.
Why Your Support is Critical Now
This work has become my full-time job. Each week, I spend dozens of hours researching deals, analyzing price trends, and profiling the farmers and producers who feed our city. Stumptown Savings is an independent, one-person operation. My allegiance is to you, the reader, not to corporate interests or advertisers.
The Thursday deals newsletter is free. But to make this work sustainable, I reserve my absolute best, most in-depth work for the Savers Club, my membership program. Your membership is the single most impactful way to ensure this resource can continue. It allows me to keep the lights on and dedicate my time to finding you the best ways to save.
For just $5 a month or $50 a year, your Savers Club membership unlocks:
Exclusive Tools: Get access to my Costco Membership Calculator to see if it’s worth it for your family, or check the Portland Egg Price Tracker to find the cheapest dozen near you this week.
The Complete Guides: Unlock the full archive of members-only guides to mastering Portland's grocery scene, from navigating WinCo to finding the best local butcher shops.
Independent, Community-Focused Journalism: Your membership directly funds a resource built to serve our community. You are investing in a system where the primary goal is helping people, not selling ads.
I learned the power of member-supported work during my time at OPB. When readers invest, it creates a powerful bond of accountability and shared purpose.
If Stumptown Savings has helped you save money or discover something new about our local food scene, I’m asking you to join me. Become a member today and help build a more affordable and connected food community for all of us.
