I love a bargain and saving money so it comes as no surprise that I would love coupons. Carey recently asked how I organize my coupons. There are many, many, many ways to do this. I just use a simple system really but it works for me since in my small town of two grocery stores we don’t get a lot of coupons unfortunately. I use a simple coupon organizer that I picked up at the dollar store for cheap. Here it is:
My trick to making the coupons always available to use is to keep my coupon organizer in the van. I mentioned this before in my post about organizing my van. As I get coupons in the mail or in the newspaper I’ll clip them and put them on my I’m outta here shelf. Then I grab them as I’m going out the door and put them immediately into the front of my organizer. Anytime I have a few extra minutes, picking up the kids from school for instance, I’ll quickly go through and sort the coupons alphabetically by type (ie: soap, diapers, hair, etc). This is what I find works for me, but another idea if you have a lot of coupons is to sort by expiry date. Keeping the organizer in my van means I can quickly grab it when going into a store and I never have to worry that I forgot it at home.
Professional Organizer, Adriane from NeatLiving, does this as well except instead she uses and highly recommends this great product called Mrs. A’s Grocery Coupon Organizer. This coupon organizer includes patented coupon holder pages that let you see and use multiple grocery coupons at a glance. No more fumbling with coupons one at a time.
Kim says
Great tips on coupons, Laura. I don’t use tons of coupons, so I use the “cram them into my wallet” method. I have looked at the two products you mentioned, but again, I don’t use enough to justify buying one.
Have a good day!
ChupieandJ'smama says
I have the same exact coupon organizer that you do, but I organize mine by date. Thanks for the idea of keeping it in my car and filing them as I’m waiting to pick the kids up from school. What a time saver idea!
I hope the pizza pancakes work for you. My son has food issues too because of his allergies. He usually refuses to try anything new and has issues with texture. I think it’s because we kept him on baby food for so long and because he’s just not used to eating the “normal” things that kids do. He’s actually at 85% for weight for his age, but I think that’s due to the potato chips (his favorite thing to eat). We were pretty premissive with it, because it was all he’d eat, but we are scaling back now that he’s older.
In Pursuit of His Call says
Thanks for the other links on this post. I’ll check them out the next free moment I have. I too thank you for saying that you keep your coupons in your van. Sometimes, if I have to go on a spontaneous store run I remember that I have a coupon for that item, but then the coupon was left at home in my coupon organizer. Great tip!!!
Sue says
Thanks for the great ideas. My coupon organizer had come with dividers based on type, but that never works b/c you can’t fit everything into the categories they give you. I’ll have to head to the dollar store.
Sandra says
Laura as usual you have great ideas for organizing, I could really use this one, I have a hard time keeping my coupons organized which means half the time I don’t even use them….*sigh*
Thanks for the other links too, will look into them 🙂
annie says
Great idea. I have a couple of coupon organizers but this looks better.
Christine says
I have arranged mine by category (fridge items, cleaners, baby, etc.) but I’ve gotten out of the habit of clipping them weekly. I have to fit that back into my routine (when things aroudn here get back to “normal” that it…).
Thanks for the links and product ideas!
Michelle says
I’m really liking the Mrs. A’s coupon organizer. I use a file system like yours, but have mine organized by aisle in my favorite grocery store. Problem is ~ I have so many coupons that I rarely use them because I don’t want to stand in an aisle or in the checkout fumbling with all of the coupons. Thanks for the tips…I’m def. going to be using some of them!
Have a great weekend. 🙂
Quietromance says
This was cool about the coupons, thanks for the tips!
I’m suddenly getting a rush of baby coupons in the mail and now I can save them and not loose them!
~Haley
Lyn says
Great post, thanks! I do my coupons by date and I find I use them more this way. If I haven’t used some of the coupons by the end of the month in which they expire, I find I really didn’t need those items anyway. With the category method, I used to always have tons of expired coupons that I wanted to use.
Manchus says
Great idea! I have been reading your posts for a while and it is quite an inspiration for me(not in terms of blogging, but organizing my home and self).
I use coupon sorter like the one you got, I keep in the car that we usually take for running errands. I bring the sorter home on Sundays when we get bunch of coupons in the paper. I sort coupons and trash expired ones on Sunday night while I am watching my fav TV program.
Manchus says
Oops Let me clarify, I love your blog, but I know I can never write with such dedication 🙂
Sally Bradley says
Love the idea of keeping the coupon holder in the car! Why haven’t I thought of that before?
palmtreefanatic says
I love coupons! and saving money great tip!
Carrie says
I tried sorting alphabetically but it didn’t work for us. We started by brand name, but that didn’t work because you couldn’t easily/quickly look and see if two different brands were offering coupons on the same type of product (ie Heinz ketchup, or Del Monte ketchup).
Then we tried alphabetically by product (like ketchup), but then hubby and I would end up putting them in different places because we call them different things. I’d put a pickle coupon under “p” for pickles, he’d put it under “c” for condiments. Argh. 🙂
So now we’re organized by type, and it works better for us.
– HBA (Health & Beauty Aids)
– Paper goods & chemicals (household cleaners)
– Dairy/Refrigerated
– Baby & Pet items
– Condiments & sauces
– Breads & cereals
– Canned foods
– Snack foods
– Baking goods
– Frozen foods
– Boxed food (like hamburger helper)
– Drinks (like coffee, tea, soda, caprisun – things not found in the refrigerated section)
So now we can quickly look through a section (like condiments for pickles) and see if we’d get a better deal with a different brand.
I have a little 13-pocket organizer like you do and this leaves me the front pocket open for unsorted coupons, or to put the coupons that I’ve pulled out and am going to use.
amy says
What a great post!! I so need help with these kinds of things!
Aron says
Ive tried organizing coupons like this but I could never make it work. I always had a hard time finding them or they would be expired when I did find them. One method that has been working for me is to just set the sunday coupons aside and then use a site like http://coupontom.com before I go shopping to find them.
Beth says
this is my http://greenstew.com/?p=113
I take it with me everywhere.
Laura @ Laura Williams' Musings says
I created the method in the 90’s and although I’m probably a little bias, lol I have to say out of all the methods I went through, the binder has worked the best for me.
Happy Couponing!
Laura Williams
Creator of the Coupon Binder Method
http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/2007/07/lauras-couponing-and-refunding-hints.html
helen456 says
As my coupon numbers were growing , i was missing some of the deals and it was very difficult to maintain the clippped coupons.
So i got the couponsavingsoftware from http://www.couponsavingsoftware.com
i created my own coupon database using it and now i dont miss even a single deal, also it deletes all my expired coupons automatically.
helen456 says
Found a Cheap Coupon Organizing Software !!!
I found a cheap coupon Organizing Software at http://www.couponsavingsoftware.com its just for $14.99 (limited offer)
The software has features like :-
-Auto delete of expired coupons
-Unlimited coupon entries
-INsert/Edit/Delete features