SANTA ANA, Calif. – Her husband, her children and her own mother think she’s obsessed, but Laura Nygaard can’t imagine grocery shopping without her coupons.

The 43-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita stay-at-home mom racks up tales of her coupon savings the way some people rack up stories about fish they caught or romantic conquests. She regularly saves $75 to $100. Her personal best was $176 on a $211 bill.

With those kinds of regular savings, the only thrill left for a coupon aficionado such as Nygaard is finding converts to her way of shopping.

Already a coupon user, she kicked things into high gear after learning about cutouthunger.org, a Web site that posts weekly coupons and supermarket sales and encourages shoppers to donate items to the needy. It is, she said, just what shoppers “who don’t coupon” need to change their money-burning ways.

With the increasingly higher prices of everyday consumer items such as gasoline, milk and beef significantly straining many Americans’ household budgets, coupon shoppers such as Nygaard say it is silly not to use coupons.

“Most of the time, I won’t even buy something if I don’t have a coupon,” she said. “I’m ashamed to say it’s my hobby.”

American consumers saved nearly $3 billion last year by using coupons. That figure may astound shoppers who dismiss coupons as offering only negligible savings. After all, the face value of the average coupon is 85 cents. But consider that last year consumers threw away $267 billion in potential savings, according to Carolina Manufacturer’s Service, or CMS, which processes redeemed coupons for manufacturers and retailers.

Earlier this year, Nygaard and two other Southern California women started gathering coupon and supermarket deals for Stephanie Nelson, the Atlanta woman who started cutouthunger.org in 2001. At first, Nelson’s goal was to help other Atlantans save enough money to make it easy to donate items to local food banks and soup kitchens.

“She’s very infectious with her drive. She’s very enthusiastic,” said Susan Lenio, assistant director of North Fulton Charities, a food bank in suburban Atlanta. “She brings in weekly groceries, and she’s got quite a following that donates to us, too.”

The site became so popular that the 40-year-old former sales and marketing executive began adding deals for other cities’ markets. She said she started with Southern California for two reasons. The first: the substantial deals she said the area’s markets offer. The second reason was learning that, despite those deals, nearly 12 percent of Californians live in poverty.

“I thought, “Here’s a place where you can have a lot of impact,”‘ she said.

The biggest regional group of visitors to Nelson’s site now comes from Southern California, she said – about 10,000 she estimated. An independent marketing survey she commissioned found that 20 percent of the average total of 60,000 regular users buy items to donate to charity.

“It’s taken the hard work out of (using coupons),” Nygaard said, who shops almost daily and frequently delivers bags of groceries to local charities such as Saddleback Community Outreach. The items she brings in are “a great help,” said food-pantry director Shirley Longfield.

Those savings also can make a big difference in household budgets.

“Ideally, the idea is to put that money back into their other financial goals. The trick is to get those coupons users to actually save that money,” said Lisa Tatman, a Laguna Hills financial planner. “Sometimes I find that coupon users say they just saved $50 at Ralphs, so then it’s easier to go and spend $75 at Mervyn’s that was never on the list in the first place.”

Shoppers who don’t use coupons generally complain they take too long to clip or that using them means buying undesirable or unnecessary items such as discontinued brands of air freshener.

“That’s the really sad part,” said Lorraine Gallaher, marketing director for CMS. “So many people just think they’re too busy to save … that they don’t have time for such small savings.”

Still, Nygaard said shoppers do have to be flexible about brands and stores if they want to save money with coupons.

“It’s about learning to coupon effectively. That (savings) allows you to spend money on something else that you wouldn’t be able to,” she said.

The average coupon user saves about $12 a week for about 20 minutes of planning and coupon cutting, or about 10 percent to 12 percent off the average American family’s shopping bill of $100 a week, Gallaher said.

If they seem insignificant on their own, coupons can slash grocery bills when combined with double savings programs and supermarkets’ club-card memberships, especially for a household with several people. Nelson said coupons have helped her halve her family of four’s monthly grocery bill.

“Saving money on groceries is not about changing what you eat, it’s about changing how you buy what you like,” she said. “But the best is when (you save so much that the store has) to pay you.”

To show how effective coupons can be, Nygaard took friend Michele Osborn grocery shopping at Ralphs. Osborn, 36 and a stay-at-home mother of four also in Rancho Santa Margarita, said she typically spends about $500 a month on groceries.

She was skeptical of Nygaard’s savings claims and about what kind of items she would buy. Among the deals she got: A pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Regular price: $4.19. With coupons: $1.

Four-roll pack of Cottonelle toilet paper. Regular price: $3.19. With coupons: $1.

One-liter bottle of A&W root beer. Regular price: $1.59. With coupons: 45 cents.

Two tubes of Colgate toothpaste. Regular price: $3.39 each. With coupons: free.

Kellogg’s Fruit Harvest cereal. Regular price: $4.19. With coupons: free.

Osborn bought little produce and no milk, eggs, poultry or meat, but she did get a rain check for hamburger the store had advertised on sale. She said she would focus next time on trying to build meals.

After methodically scouring each aisle, the two women hit the checkout line, where the cashier greeted Nygaard by name.

Osborn’s grand total for items before coupons or Ralphs club-card savings: $163.82. After the club card, $97.72. And after the coupons, $35.61.

“I didn’t think she could do it, but she did,” Osborn told a friend in line behind her as she paid the bill. “I’m kind of pumped now.”

Looking pleased, Nygaard said, “I think I have a convert.”