Adventures of a Coupon Newbie

Wanting and needing to save money, I decided to join the coupon bandwagon and really work hard at saving money at the grocery store. Using several websites like southernsavers.com and acoupondiva.com, I printed coupons, clipped coupons and plotted and planned my trip. Hitting up two local grocery stores I went in and came out pleased and motivated to keep going. It was definitely worth the time and effort. I spent about an hour this morning preparing for the trip and about an hour at the two stores (luckily they are across the street from each other, so little travel time was involved. All told I bought over $185 worth of groceries, but only spent $85. So I figured I saved about $50 an hour for my efforts!!!!

Shopping trip at Publix - $45 worth of groceries for only $15!!!!

Some of my best individual buys:
3 boxes of name-brand cereal for $2.10 total (that is 70 cents a box)
2 boxes of Go-Gurts (a special treat in my house because I will rarely spend the money on them) - 90 cents total
2 boxes of hair color - Normally $9 a box. I got each for $1.

Throw in a free 1/2 gallon of orange juice, 2 jars of Paul Newman spaghetti sauce for $1 each and $27 worth of meat for only $12 and it was a pretty good trip!

I am super new at all of this stuff. If you have any suggestions or ideas, I'd love to hear them!!! Off to go buy my Sunday papers!!!