Lessons learned at the grocery store(i.e. couponing)

I am an on-again off-again couponer. Sometimes I convince myself that it is a waste of time for me and that I end up spending more than I normally budget for groceries by going to all of the places that have great sales. Then I start thinking about what I might be missing out on and end up couponing again. Now some of you may say that it is not a big deal to coupon, you just give the checker your coupons and you are done. But oh no, you would be wrong. There is a whole world out there and lots of blogs dedicated to couponing. Here are a few of them that I visit, mostly for my Northwest readers...
www.pinchingyourpennies.com
www.fabulesslyfrugal.com
www.blog.savewithlouise.com
www.grocerysmarts.com

These are just a few of the numerous ones out there. I am still learning how they work and all of the lingo that goes with it all. For example, DND means do not double(the coupon value) and DNT means do not triple. I didn't even know that they tripled coupons.

This week was a definite lesson in couponing for me and unfortunately I didn't learn it until I was standing in Albertson's this morning. I had gone to Safeway earlier in the week and had good success with my coupons. I purchased 4 boxes of toothpaste, 4 boxes of Kleenex, a 24pack of toilet paper, and 4 cereals for under $10, which was good since the toilet paper alone was $5.99. I used the instore coupons, some coupons I printed off on the computer and the coupon doubler that comes in the weekly add. I actually used two doublers which meant I needed to do this in two transactions. I was definitely excited about couponing after this trip since my toothpaste ended up being free. I also got a catalina(new coupon word for me),which is a paper that the receipt printer spits out at the end, for a free gallon of milk. That is always helpful in a family of 10.
Fastforward to this morning, I decided to try the Albertson's sale. I got onto www.grocerysmarts.com and looked at their list and then printed out the coupons I needed for this trip. I noticed that in one of the columns there were two prices for how much the item should be but didn't know what that meant. So off I went with two babies in tow and one of the older girls to help me. I now know why there were two prices and it didn't come out to be such a good deal for me this time. However I did it anyway. At Albertson's this week they are having a deal where, if you spend $30 on certain items, you get a $15 catalina to use on your next purchase. I did not plan to spend $30 so my items were more than I expected them to be but still cheaper than they could have been. All in all, I spent about $12 but purchased several items.

So this whole, long, blundering post is meant to 1. share some websites where you can go to find good deals and 2. to help you to learn through my mistakes.