Walmart Shopping Trip

After yesterday's shopping trip, I felt completely overwhelmed and frustrated. I spent $71.00 at Walmart for my groceries and only saved $7.35 from my coupons. And I still needed meats, which I had planned to pick up at HEB. It was a huge wake up call that I really don't know what I'm doing. I need more help! With this is mind I turned to couponing guru Kristin from Couponing to Disney. She has a series that she videoed on couponing for beginners. I sat down this morning feeling weary and watched all of the first week segments. I can honestly say that after watching the videos, I felt like getting up and getting back in the saddle (so to speak). Her first week goes over the basics such as common myths about couponing, the "code" names for specific types of coupons, where to find coupons, and how to organize your coupons. I noticed yesterday that I was completely unorganized in the way that I should have been. This took up a lot of valuable time and I think that is what frustrated me. After 2 and 1/2 hours in a store as big as Walmart, I can imagine the most patient person becoming frustrated and anxious (and patients is not one of my virtues). I did get a lot of groceries but they are not really cohesive. By that I mean, I don't really have a full menu planned out for the items that I purchased. This is another topic that Kristin talks about...planning your menu around what is on sale. Now I did read about this in my copy of Miserly Mom, but I think I forgot about this when I was doing my planning. Kristin suggests scheduling about 3 hours to really sit down and go over your sales ads, coupons, making your list and menu. This is something that I have scheduled into my limited time for Sunday, and hopefully I will do better this week. Heck, I better cause I'm running out of money for my food budget. I'll just pray that I got the stuff I need to have a decent Thanksgiving dinner.