Coupons, Coupons, everywhere!

So I have joined the club, got on the ban wagon, I am a coupon clipper! I’m not very good at it yet. But I am the most organized bad coupon clipper there is! For Christmas my cousin Karina gave me a coupon binder and my AR/OC self just loves it!

When I first started I was using this mini accordion file type thing and well it’s no wonder it wasn’t helping us on our shopping trips! Even though I had it divided up into categories and the like I would spend forever looking though the thing at the store trying to find a certain coupon that I knew I had but couldn’t remember the specifics that had to happen in order to use it (was it a $1.00 off if I bought 2 or was it 3?)

Now I use this…tada!

Here’s a list of things you need to make your own real quick before I get into the specifics:

• A 3 ring binder (some prefer one that is enclosed so that coupons don’t fall out. If for some reason you will swinging around your binder... maybe when rejoicing from all the savings your going to be getting)
• Baseball Card Holder Pages
• Dividers (number will depend on how many categories you decide you need. I have 20)
• Zipper Pouch (I keep my pen, pencil, scrap paper and calculator in this)

So I have a 1 ½ inch 3 ring binder that has two pockets on both the inside front cover and the inside back cover. In the front pockets I keep all the coupons that I need to file and in the other front pocket I keep the sales ads I need (target, CVS, Publix) for that week.  In the back pockets I keep extra baseball card sheets.

Behind my zipper pouch comes all my different categories. I have 20 different categories as follows: (the notes beside each categories is what I have put to give me clues about what I put in each category –there is more variety in the actual sections)

Gift Cards

Reward Cards

Restaurants

Retail Stores

Dry Goods – Cereals, Bread, Crackers, Rice

Pre-Made Foods – Soups, Tacos, Dinner Kits

Condiments & Sauces – Ketchup, Mayo, Barbecue

Baking Items – Spices, Boxed Mixes

Meats – Deli Section, Meat Department

Frozen Items – Entrees, Veggies, Desserts

Dairy- Cheese, Yogurt, Cookies (slicen’bake)

Beverages – Juices, Cokes, Ect

Paper Goods – TP, Paper Towels, Plates

Cleaning Supplies – Swifters, Dawn, Laundry

Personal Care – Shampoo, Razors, Lotions

Medicines – Alive, Claritin, Band-Aids

Misc. – Batteries, Candles, Ect.

Pet Care – Food, Treats, Stores

Store Coupon Policies

 

 

 

Recommendations: 

• It is helpful in some of these categories if there is a page devoted to a certain item. Like in personal care I have a page for me and a page for John. Or in dry goods there is a page for cereals, one for breads, and so forth. If you have a divider (category) for every little thing the binder will just be filled with a bunch of dividers and only one page and two coupons behind it. Space it too important! 
• Get good dividers! Make sure that you can see them- you want them to stick out over the baseball pages. I have also found it helpful for my dividers to have pockets on them. That way before I get to the store I can go through my binder and place the coupons I want to use in the pocket of that category and can look at them as I need to but then I still have all the rest laid out in the pages in case I run across a great sale that wasn’t advertised.
• Make your own categories. These are just the ones that work for us. Every family has different needs.

What I think:

• It’s a lot easier to find coupons! Period! Especially for unadvertised deals.
• Once you get it the way you like it (categories and what not) it’s easy to put your coupons in each week. You do have to make sure they are trimmed well to fit in the slots but I think that it’s totally worth the extra time that takes. 
• It’s easy to see when coupons expired and to then pull them out. 
• Everything is in one place – coupons, calculator, scissors, pens, paper

Happy Couponing!! Wait till you see my shopping bag! Your going to want one too! But that's another blog for another day!