So, I called up Jill Cataldo.

She's the one who writes the nationally-syndicated "Coupon Queen" column, which appears alongside my "Savvy Saver" column on this page every week.

It was very exciting to hear her voice - she's a real person, after all?!!! Ha!

But, here's something even more exciting: The "Coupon Queen" herself is coming to the Quad-Cities.

Cataldo will be delivering one of her coupon workshops (for the first time ever in our area) at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Moline Public Library. And we can all attend for FREE.

Prepare for an "awakening," people. That's what Cataldo told me I could expect from her workshop, as we chatted on the phone the other day.

I admitted to her - oh, gosh, I hated to admit it - that I need her help. I had just shamefully spent $80 at a local grocery store the other day and only used one coupon. I know I can do better, but all this talk of coupling coupons with sales and double-coupons and rebates and "blinkies" and other specials … I'm confused about how to execute it all.

"You can learn to do this in an hour, and if you come to the class, you will," Cataldo said. "You will never shop the same way again."

OK, but how much extra work does it take? She says not much. Once you get used to the concept, it doesn't take long to get a savings plan in place, she said.

"It's like an awakening," she said. "You'll figure out, 'I can really do this, and the savings is huge.' "

Cataldo, 35, said she lives in a Chicago suburb with her hubby and three kids. She is a stay-at-home mom, while also working as a coupon-workshop instructor and columnist. She joked on the phone about transforming into "a professional coupon queen" after her third child was born.

Oh, and she promises to cater her class in the Quad-Cities to our region, using examples from grocery stores we have here.

Jennifer Christiansen, a reference librarian at the Moline Public Library, said she is really looking forward to Cataldo's visit. So are some of her friends. And so are several people who recently read about the upcoming event in the library's e-newsletter, she said.

"With the economy and everybody going through the same thing with everyone tightening their belts, we were looking for a program that would appeal to a lot of people," Christiansen said. "I know it's going to be popular with a lot of people."

Will you be there?

Kay Luna can be contacted at kluna@qctimes.com. She blogs at http://my.quadsville.com/KayLuna.