Kaysville » It feels almost a bit silly to be following a rather animated 40-something dad in a green apron through an Albertsons grocery store, tossing stuff into your cart when he barks the order.

But then you see the admiring glances of other shoppers, some of whom stop right in their tracks and gawk when they hear Ken Roesbery tell me in his booming voice that those four packages of hot dogs I just threw in the cart aren't going to cost me a dime.

One night last week, I joined a local church group and went on a shopping trip with Utah's "Grocery Guru." If you aren't familiar with Roesbery -- he's in the newspaper, on billboards and on the radio -- he's the guy who claims you can save up to 70 percent on your groceries if you follow his strategies.

Just who is this guy? Roesbery is employed by MediaOne, which handles advertising, printing and distribution for The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News . It's his job to preach the benefits of getting one or more newspaper subscriptions, which, as he points out, are populated with coupons and other promotions that can save you money.

Sure, you can print out grocery coupons online now, and a lot of companies are offering money-saving deals on the Internet. But most savvy shoppers still get the newspaper -- at least one or more Sunday newspapers -- because the coupons found in them save you much more than the cost of a subscription.

But so many people don't use coupons. Roesbery says the majority of shoppers are what he calls "hip-shooters," who go to the store not paying particular attention to what's on sale and end up making a number of unplanned purchases.

But Roesbery says there's a better way. He recommends looking through the grocery ads, picking one store to shop at that week, and planning your meals and shopping list around what's on sale. That's a key strategy -- planning your meals around the discounted, sometimes below-cost, food that grocery stores put on sale each week to lure shoppers.

"Even if you don't clip a single coupon, you're going to save big by just planning meals around what's on sale," Roesbery said.

But adding coupons to the mix increases the savings. Many of the items that go on sale each week also have coupons.

Many people don't clip coupons because they view it as a hassle. Roesbery said one way to make coupon-clipping easy is to simply keep the coupon inserts from the Sunday newspaper in a file (this is exactly what I do) and clip only those you are going to use that week after seeing what's on sale. (Keep coupons in a file for about one month.)

At the Kaysville Albertsons, I'm on the end of a line of nearly one dozen women who are taking part in Roesbery's demonstration shopping spree.

I quickly notice one of the major criticisms of Rosebery that I've heard over the years -- that he focuses on pre-packaged foods that aren't especially good to eat.

By the end of the session, we have grabbed items such as canned spaghetti sauce, spaghetti, salad dressing, barbecue sauce, Pepsi, potato chips, Pop-Tarts, hot dogs, eggs, milk, bread, boxed cereal and boxed pasta salad. I study my basket. There's a fair amount of stuff my cart that I don't normally buy, such as the soda, chips, Pop-Tarts and hot dogs -- let alone four packages of them.

But Roesbery's strategy is sound -- buy what's on sale and use coupons and take advantage of such promotions as Albertsons' double-coupon offer when you can.

At checkout, Roesbery hands each of us a wad of coupons. My total before sales and coupons is $85.59; afterward it's $28.48.

I haul out eight bags of groceries to the car. Sure, Roesbery's goal (other than selling newspapers) is to teach people how to save money in the grocery store. But he's also trying to teach that you can have fun doing it. Make it a game. Shop with a friend or two. Form a coupon-clipping group with some of your neighbors.

Annette Israelsen of Kaysville, who shopped with Rosebery last week, said she enjoyed the experience. "What I got from his presentation is that it's not hard to save money and that it's fun to be frugal."

Having fun while saving money. In times like this, what could be better?

Lesley Mitchell writes One Cheap Chick in daily blog form at blogs.sltrib.com/cheap.