I'm halfway through week one of my attempts to coupon and cut my grocery bill. I'm wondering if I'm in over my head. It's so much to think about!

My goal is to save 30 percent or more on the items we use frequently.

The highlights of this week:

I bought two large packs of boneless chicken breasts. They were on sale for $1.99, down from $3.29 a pound. I saved $13.54. I divided the packages into small, serving size bags in the freezer. I also used a $1 off Catalina that I found at the self-checkout.

I used my grocery discount card to save 30 cents a gallon on 10 gallons of gas. ($3.03 to 2.73/gallon)

I signed up for a CVS card, and used it to get BOGO cocoa roasted almonds. Reg price: $6.49 a can. Got one free, plus used $1 coupon, so $5.49 for 2. I eat these when I am in fat club, so I'm happy to have some on hand.

I was not able to get any of the items couponmom.com marked as "free" or really great deals at my local grocery and drug stores. I was mad at first, but realize I'm not going to score every time.

I also missed out on coupons for Horizon organic milk and seventh generation because the coupons were no longer online by the time I got around to hooking up the printer and installing the coupon software. I clearly have to jump on these things when I see them.

I realize it is going to take time. I need to build up a cache of coupons, pay attention to sales flyers, etc.

I am going to start simple:

Buy loss leaders
Buy on sale, and match sale items with a coupon
Look for catalinas

I signed up for Couponmom.com, to get me started. I also began saving all of my Sunday coupon inserts (as per coupon mom system) and am now looking at the mid-week grocery ads and the CVS and Walgreens ads.

I realize I am not going to be able to save big all at once. I hope to slowly build a stockpile of the items we use frequently, so then we can start only shopping sales.

So, I have repurposed the built in cabinets in the basement bathroom. They are mostly empty, so it will become our pantry stockpile.