The Leviners

On Monday I went to my 1st offical Southern Savers Coupon Workshop! It was exciting and fun! I've been to a previous coupon workshop that was held by a well versed couponer and saver and she's gotten amazing deals for pennies and made this whole saving seem easy, but I wanted to hear it all from Jenny, herself. I've found within recent months that this whole couponing/saving is more like a science or an art!
I'm ready for this new challenge of trying to figure out how to spend less while getting more!
So here's my previous "thinkings" and current beliefs about all the spiel on couponing and saving!

Thoughts/Beliefs/Actions before Southern Savers:

1. Shopped at walmart for every item that I needed from food to toiletries.

2. Then shopped at walmart using ad comparisons (saved on some things).

3. Continued to shop at walmart but began using
ad comparisons and coupons (began to save
between 33% and 50% on everything that we needed).

Recently got $90+ dollars in toiletries plus
8 food items for $47.00!

4. Previous Thought: Why use a .50 coupon when
I was already spending $70.00?

5. Never bought a Sunday newspaper unless
someone I knew was in the engagement/bridal
section (even though I grew up having the

newspaper delivered daily to our house).

6. Made grocery lists based on weekly needs.

Now I know/Attempting:

1. To buy/subscribe to the Sunday State Newspaper

2. Subscribe to several magazines like All You for even
more coupons (2 sub. are better)

3. How to organize my coupons the accordian style. Check!

4. Make grocery list based on sales of items
that are at their rock bottom prices.

5. How to calculate the rock bottom price for items.

6. When I shop for rock bottom price items I need to
purchase a six week supply. When starting out I
need to purchase a week's supply of need it now items.

7. I understand coupon barcodes.

8. I know how ECB and Rewards work at two different drugstores.

9. I'm learning scenarios! Divide buggy items
into 4 piles (one in each corner), 1st pile, use ECB
that will pay for this pile, get 2nd ECB bucks from

1st transaction and buy 2nd pile, then use ECB
from 2nd pile to buy 3rd, then use ECB from 3rd pile
to buy 4th)...then Go Home!

10. Items in ads are not at rock bottom prices, usually.
Some, maybe!

11. Knows the following acronyms and what
they mean: OOP, WYB, RP, SS,

ECB, RR, WSL, NED, IP, MIR, CRT, UPC, PG, +UP.

12. How to buy a BOGO with a BOGO coupon
and to only shop BOGO at drugstores.

13. National Brands are cheaper if used with
coupons (stacking) than with house brands.

14. Learn to like what's on sale. This is a biggie!
I'm sure that all the food items that I like aren't
going to be on sale!

15. That the "certain TV show" is bogus and
where's the food in their all 12 buggies? All I can see
is that there are 30 tubes of lipstick, 30 Pepsi's,

and a lot of rolaids!

Confusions or rather Time Constraints:

1. Kraft Dressing 14 to 16 oz, BOGO $3.19

   -$1/2 Kraft Salad Dressings 16-oz. Target Web Coupon

   -$0.55/1 Kraft Dressing (IE) Rolling Printable (FF)

   -$1/2 Kraft Salad Dressing 5/15/2011 RP Insert
     (exp 6/12/2011)

   -$1 off produce wyb 2 Kraft Dressing Tearpad

    As low as 5¢ per item with all the coupons
    if you’re buying produce anyway

The above doesn't really confuse me at all. I understand the acronyms the coupon value and where to find the coupon. What boggles my mind is that if I want this salad dressing for .05 cents I'm going to have to print off some coupons (possibly downloads...I'm not all about downloading anything like this to my computer...when it was tried once on my computer viruses like crazy were found and it was from a trusted site (luckily the viruses didn't "attach" my hard drive). If I don't already have the tearpad coupon that it mentions, I have to search for it in the grocery store and unless I go by myself I won't have the time to seach for it and what if they don't have it. And if I'm expected to already have the coupon from the tearpad..well that's a whole different story. What if I didn't walk down the dressing aisle to know that it even existed in the first place!
So playing out this item in hopes of gaining + money (overage) to pay for my produce, meat, and milk is now out of the cards and I have to do a lot of reconfiguring to stay within my initial budget for the grocery trip. Who has the time nor the energy? I am a teacher mommy and so how I spend my time is very important. So I'm not sure that I'm ever going to get this item for .05 cents. I'd be happy if I saved using the $1 coupon from the RP insert.
This all sounds exhausting but I know one person that has gotten $200.00+ groceries from Publix and only spent $8 and some change (the presenter from the 1st coupon workshop that I attended). She's been doing SS for about two years and chooses to shop at Publix and CVS. She is by the way a stay at home mommy!
I have a lot of questions about this whole SS process, but it will eventually unfold itself and I'll be well on my way to saving! Would love to hear your thoughts and feelings so please share!