Musings of a Newbie Couponer

I'm relatively new to the world of couponing.  There are so many thrifty and organized folks out there who come into the grocery store armed with coupons and they walk out paying like...$3.50 for $20 worth of groceries.  Seriously, I want to join that club.  Every dollar saved means an additional dollar to my "eat really fresh melt-in-your-mouth sushi" omakase fund.

I've had some good experiences with using coupons lately.  I ambled into Target with a $5 off any denim apparel coupon and found a pair of jeggings (yes, I joined that trend cus it's like sweat pants disguised as denim that you can wear in public) that were clearance priced at $13.  Imagine my surprise when they rang up as FREE.  Don't you love that?  Somehow that never happens when I'm at Michaels or at Sushi Gen.  Of course all the euphoria of having saved $8 went away when I wore said free jeggings 5 days later and a well-meaning (aka really ignorant of what not to ask women) gentlemen asked me how many months I was along.  Sigh.  I didn't even have a large lunch.  I guess I should stop wearing tunic tops on casual Fridays?      

I've fallen into the habit of printing all my coupons on Sundays.  During the week I'll bookmark the sites (I subscribe to Penny Pinchin' Mom and Southern Savers, to name a couple) in my google reader and it has become somewhat a ritual for me to clean out my "queue" of stuff to print on Sundays (I don't want to install the coupon printer thingy on my work computer).  Even though I do most of my shopping at ethnic markets, Costco, and TJs, there are certain items that are much cheaper at Food 4 Less or Target.  Couponing becomes less intimidating and more manageable for me when I only have to cross check my coupons against sales in certain stores once in a while.  Baby steps!