Organizing Coupons

Sorry, no free taco's tomorrow. Hopefully Jack in the Box will bring the promotion back soon.

I've had several people ask how I organize my coupons, I thought that would be a great topic for today.

First, in order to organize coupons, you must have coupons. I get most of my coupons (Q's) from the Sunday paper. I do not cut out all coupons, just the ones I think I'll use plus ones for items that I would buy if I could get them free or for a few pennies. As an example, I do not cut out coupons for soup because my family doesn't really like soup. Get it? I also get a few coupons from the web. Sites such as http://www.coupons.com/ have printable coupons. Also, if an item is on sale and I do not have a Q, I will check the manufacturers website for printable Q's. I also get a few from magazines.

Now that you have coupons, you need to organize them. I have tried several ways, but the way I'm using now is by far the best and I'm very grateful to a friend (thanks Liz!) for suggesting this method. I use a 3 ring binder with baseball card holders inside. You can get a binder very cheap with all the back to school sales, and baseball card holders are about $5 at Walmart and Target. I fold my coupons so that the picture, expiration date, and amount is showing. Like coupons are put in the same slot. I use post it tabs on the side to identify my categories. I also keep scratch paper, a pen, and a calculator in my binder.

I use the following categories, but you can use what works best for you.

Food

Health and Beauty

Cleaners

Household - non cleaners (paper products, etc)

Air Fresheners

Medicine

Store Coupons

Most baseball card holders have 9 slots per page, so it is super easy to find a coupon, or determine if you have it, by flipping just a few pages instead of flipping through an entire stack.

Do you have other suggestions for organizing coupons? If so, leave a comment to share with others!

On a side note, please remember local charities and shelters when you find great deals. If you are able to purchase excess items that you can not use, especially personal hygine and food items, please consider donating them to a homeless shelter or similar organization. Animal shelters also appreciate pet food donations. The thrill of finding a great deal is wonderful, but the thrill of using those items to help others in need is even better!

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Organizing Coupons