Week 1, Lesson 3: Organizing the Coupons.

Once you have coupons from the newspaper, and coupons from the printer, you have a huge mess of coupons. It can be overwhelming. You need a system to organize and store your coupons! How you want to store them is up to you but I am going to share a few ways that have worked for people, and my own system. How you choose to organize them has to work for you, so there is no right way.

I will start with the newspaper coupons first and explain my methods. As I stated before I buy many papers each week. This past week I bought ten. I start by first pulling out the inserts. This is what my inserts looked like this past week. There were three of each kind in each paper.

I go through each paper and pull out each insert. I then sort them so all like coupons are stacked together. I choose to take one insert and lay out each page, then take the rest of the inserts and stack the pages on top of each other.

Once I have all the like coupons sorted, then I cut them. I now use a guillotine cutter, but I cut each set with scissors for years. With the cutter I can cut all ten inserts at once, with scissors you need to cut around 4-6 at once.

Once they are cut, I place them into two piles. One for food, one for non food. Once they are all cut, then I place them in my binder.

I use a binder. Not everyone does. Some people use a box and dividers. Some people use envelopes. I strongly advocate a binder. I will explain why just once and then let everyone decide for themselves. I have young children, I have to shop with these young children. If I spend too much time searching for a coupon, those darling children start acting out in stores. When those children act out, I lose focus, I get frustrated and I miss deals. So I prefer to do the most work I can, at home, on my couch, in my pjs :-). With a binder, I feel like I can organize and find coupons faster and easier.

My binder is now huge. I started small, with a 1in binder and no zipper. I moved up to a 2in with no zipper, then a 1.5in with zipper and now I have a whopping 3in. binder with built in files and it all zips and has a strap. I love my new binder but when I was just starting a 1 or 2in was just fine. If you are just trying this out, dont spend a ton of money on a cutter and a binder! I have been doing this for four years and have just now started buying these things. I am trying to SAVE you money, not have you spend money on things you don't need right now.

I use baseball card pages. They are more expensive, they are smaller and sometimes require folding the coupons into little origami squares. I just find that it is so much easier to see what I have with the baseball card pages. I divide the pages into categories that make sense for the stores that I shop. I have categories like breakfast, canned goods, frozen, soap, laundry, dishes, paper etc. Pick dividers that work for you, your binder or box or envelope has to only work for you and your family, so do it however you want! I am posting pictures of my binder, my coupon pages and some of my organization so if you would like to use that system you can.

I have heard of some people just sorting their coupons and printing a list of what they have and cutting at the store. I think that method would work for people who work full time and don't shop with kids. If anyone is interested in that method, let me know. I will get links to people who use it for you. The box system is similar to what I do, but most of the time they staple like coupons after they cut them, and use dividers in the box. It would be faster at home, less time putting coupons into individual slots, but it would take a little bit more time to sort through each category at the store. If you a klutz like me, get a locking box with a lid!

 My binder, all zipped up and ready to go.

 I use a zip up pouch in the front to store coupons I am using, and also to store my store rewards. I use a simple page protector behind that to store receipts that I need to save. Those same simple page protectors can be used to hold printable coupons for each category.

 Baseball card inserts are great to hold each set of coupon. It is easy to see what you have!

For coupons that aren't worth cutting, printable or coupons to specific places, a page protector works great. If you don't use a zipper, just be careful not to dump them.

Now you know what a coupon is, where to get them and how to keep them organized! Keeping them organized and getting them is essential to being a good couponer.