Organizing Your Coupons- No more unnecessary clipping!!
April 15th, 2008 | By Kendra
First thing’s first, where do I get all of my coupons?? Well, I don’t subscribe to a paper, but I know people who do and are more than happy to pass along the coupons. So, I get coupons from family members. I also put an ad on Freecycle and Craig’s List asking for any unwanted coupons, and much to my surprise, a wonderful older woman responded and has been keeping her coupons for me for a couple months now. What a blessing! I will occasionally buy a Sunday paper if I know it’s going to be worth it for me. Just ask around, I’m sure there are people in your life who are just throwing away those valuable coupons every week!
Okay, so here’s the real question:
Once you have all of those coupons piled up, how do you organize them??
I used to be one of those spending hours clipping all of the coupons, then filing them one by one into my small, expandable coupon file. Talk about exhausting! I had better ways to spend my time! So, I figured out a few helpful tricks…
- When I get my coupons, I write the date on the top of the insert.
- Next, I put the coupons by date into individual clear sheet protector sleeves in a 3-ring binder.
- You may be wondering now, how I ever find the coupons I’m looking for. Good question. Well, Couponmom.com has a virtual coupon organizer which will tell you which coupons were in which insert, depending on your state. If you haven’t signed up for this free website, do it now ! It will save you TONS of time and effort! Imagine, never clipping unnecessarily again! Then all you have to do is search for a particular coupon, and if there was one that hasn’t expired yet in any of your inserts, it will tell you which insert to look in.
For example: If I needed a coupon for Huggies. I would just go to Couponmom’s Newspaper Coupon Database, find my state, then type in “Huggies”. The search would bring up all coupon inserts that had a Huggies coupon inside. It would look like this:
03-16S 2 04-20 Huggies Diapers any $2.00 1
Meaning that the coupon could be found in the March 16th , Smart Source (2nd issue) insert. The coupon expires on April 20th , and it’s good for $2.00 off any one Huggies Diaper product.
Pretty handy, huh?!
- All I have to do is find where the coupon is, pull out that particular insert from my chronologically organized binder, and clip just what I need. EASY!
- When my binder gets filled up, I will go through my older inserts. When most or all of the coupons have expired, I will empty that sleeve, cut out any good coupons that are left, and put them into my little expandable coupon organizer.
- My expandable file has sections which are labeled with different categories: canned food, frozen foods, medicine, baby, cleaning products, hair, makeup, etc…
- I also file any other loose coupons I may get in the mail, off of products, or printed off of the computer.
- Now, when I get a FREE w/ rebate type of coupon, I don’t want to forget about it, so I will clip it out, and file it in the front of my binder using a baseball card sleeve.
- I also keep my store coupons in the baseball card sleeve, so they don’t get mixed in with all of the others.
- I keep my CVS ecb’s in the pocket in the front of my binder so that I don’t misplace them.
So, there you have it. This is what works for me , and I’m telling you, it’s a real time and money saver!! Hope this inspires some of you to get your coupons more organized, and working for you more efficiently!
Says:
Thanks for sharing this! I’m just trying to see if coupon clipping can truly save me any money
Mary, mom to many
April 16th, 2008 at 12:52 amSays:
So this is exactly what I was going to blog about next week. I do the same thing with the sleeve protectors and not cutting until needed and smaller holder for loose coupons. I even have my post in draft form. Alas, you did a MUCH better job of it. I’m totally jealous. I’ll probably post it but then have to reference your far superior post and explanation….
April 16th, 2008 at 1:04 amGreat job!
Says:
WOW…that is VERY organized!!! i’ve always wanted to be a coupon clipper but it seems like such a chore to me – the extent of our couponing involves posting the weekly captain d’s (local seafood restaurant) coupon mail insert on our frigerator! oh..and the occassional burger king (for the hubby). Thanks for the great tip on how to get started! (p.s. i LOVE your blog layout! it’s very pleasing to look at and ohsocute!)
April 16th, 2008 at 1:17 amSays:
Oh my, you described the exact thing I do. Saves so much time!
April 16th, 2008 at 6:53 amSays:
Until Kendra told me about this method, I was clipping EVERY single coupon and sticking each one into little baseball card holder slots – it was costing me a LOT of time and I was pretty much pooped at the end of my coupon clipping/organizing session. When Kendra found out what I had been doing, she told me of this method (just saving the whole P&G (or other) coupon book and looking up the coupons on Couponmom.com if I needed one that week as I looked at the local store ads. Well, I changed my coupon clipping method VERY quickly. Thanks so much Ken!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:34 amSays:
We don’t get the paper either, but after asking around, found a neighbor who is happy to pass along all the Sunday paper inserts. My MIL is a saint for telling me when the local grocery store puts a $5 off coupon in the paper…then I buy the paper before shopping to use the coupon at checkout.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:47 amThanks for the binder tips!
Says:
Great system, thanks for posting!
April 16th, 2008 at 9:38 amSays:
great method – i tend to clip randomly and then have a hard time putting my fingers on the coupon when/if i could use it…i obviously need to give your plan a try! thanks for the tip!
April 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pmSays:
Wow, I keep my coupons just like that! But I’ve been writing out my own ‘data base’ on the computer each week. I’m going to check out coupon mom to see how they do it. Thanks!
April 16th, 2008 at 2:25 pmSays:
THANK YOU!!! I may have to do away with my envelopes!
April 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pmSays:
This is such an interesting idea. I just have to get used to the idea of not cutting the coupons…
April 16th, 2008 at 3:39 pmSays:
I do this exact thing with my coupons! I hated clipping and when I started using The Grocery Game, they list it by Sunday paper date. It’s so much easier!
April 16th, 2008 at 3:39 pmSays:
I’m sorry to have shared my time-drain of a system with Sashwhy.
It DOES take way to much time…which I’ve realized with our recent addition.
My mom gave me some leftover coupons, and put the date on them, which made me think…why do all the work when it’s always listed online by date?! So…I’ve revised my ways a bit, too. Only I plan to keep the “older” inserts with valid coupons back in the baseball holders.
Now I just need to get back to buying the Sunday paper!
Great tutorial! Thanks!
April 16th, 2008 at 4:36 pmSays:
Thanks for the great tips!! I use the Grocery Game website to maximize my coupon savings and have had stacks of coupons sitting on my counter – making clutter! I love the idea of putting the entire thing in a notebook. Thanks for sharing!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:12 pmSays:
I have a very similar system I wrote about today, too!
April 16th, 2008 at 9:26 pmSays:
Wow, that is great. You have inspired me to get my coupons organized!
April 17th, 2008 at 11:49 amSays:
I just started doing something similar to this, but instead of a binder I use file folders labeled with the dates. This is so much easier than clipping and filing them individually. I do like the idea of the binder though, because it is transportable. I may have to just give that a try. Thanks for the great tip!!
April 17th, 2008 at 1:00 pmSays:
I am going to try this. Thanks!
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 pmSays:
This is pure genius. I was almost to get really frustrated with my current system. Thanks for this post!
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:09 pmSays:
I love your organizational method for coupons! Thanks for sharing!
July 24th, 2008 at 6:59 amSays:
I do almost exactly the same thing.
I have one of the sturdy accordion folders with handles and each week I buy ~4 papers (depends on how good the deals are) and then put the same pages together and file each week together in one slot. I also use couponmom.com, except I copy the coupon list each week and paste into my master excel spreadsheet and each week print out a copy of the alphabitized list of coupons that list by date.
Every month, I go through and clean out the older weeks and then add them to an envelope just be expiration date, so that I can use my printed list at the store to find my coupons.
This method is perfect for clearance racks, as you never know what you may find a great deal on that you have a coupon to match.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:59 amSays:
I use an accordion file for my coupons and sort them by week. (My file has 26 BIG slots, so I get half a year in it!)I keep loose coupons (peelies, tear pads, stragglers from old circulars, etc.) in an small coupon holder filed by category.
I usually already know what I’m looking for before I head out the door, so I don’t generally take my collection with me. I personally use Hot Coupon World for organization and research. I’ve used Coupon Mom too, but find the regional differences really change the usability of the different sites (including the paid subscription sites).
I haven’t mastered the best way to organize my IPs yet. I seem not to use most of them when I print ahead.
I took my time getting ready for HT’s triples (started today). It was really smooth this time since my Qs were so organized!
July 24th, 2008 at 12:00 pmSays:
ok just wanting to know, what do you do if you are at a store and you see somehting you know you have a coupon for at home in your organized unclipped binder?
July 24th, 2008 at 11:03 pmSays:
Amy-
It’s a good idea when you plan a shopping trip to bring all of your coupons with you (with the ones you know you’ll be using in a separate envelope). There are times when I didn’t plan on stopping, and I find a good deal and wish that I had my coupons with me. It happens. If you find yourself out a lot then I would suggest keeping your coupon binder in the car with you.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:08 pmSays:
Oh, I think you’ve just converted a shoebox organizer…
July 25th, 2008 at 9:15 pmSays:
Its a nice post about online shopping because Online shopping is fast becoming the most preferred mode of shopping whereby shoppers can reap the advantages of Internet shopping from the luxury of their homes.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:23 am