Saturn is easy to find in the west at the moment from sunset through to about 10pm.
Jupiter doesn't get over the horizon in the east until after midnight, so you'll have to stay up for a look at the big fella.
I'd consider getting or making a dobsonian mount for your telescope if you find it too hard after a while, but otherwise persist with it and you will get there.
If you have an iPhone/ipod touch/ipad download star walk, it allows you to hold the phone up to the skies and see where everything is in real-time, makes it very easy to find stuff, and has a 'night-mode' where it is all in red to stop your night-vision being affected.
With the naked eye, sometimes planets are brighter, but they really become easy to find once you are familiar with the night sky as they are the only 'stars' that aren't in the same place each night, so after a while you can spot them easily as they look out of place.
But in the meantime, use stellarium on PC/Mac or Star Walk on your iPhone/ipad/itouch.
http://www.stellarium.org/
http://vitotechnology.com/star-walk.html