Last Friday as I was sorting through my week's collection of coupons, I decided to take pictures to show you how I organize my coupons.
In my mail station I have a folder labeled "coupons". I store all of the coupons I accumulate during the week in this folder and then on Thursday or Friday, I sort through them and clip and file them before making my grocery list.
Here's my large pile of coupons for this week. There were a lot of great coupons online this week.
I don't use a binder for my coupons. It just doesn't work for me. A lot of people prefer the binder method because it's easier to see all of the coupons at once. I have a pretty good idea of what coupons I have, so I don't need to see them all at once. If you're interested in the binder method, Toni at A bowl full of lemons did an awesome job creating her's.
I use small expanding files that are the perfect size for coupons. They have 13 pockets and you can label 12 of them. I need two files to contain all of my coupons. I sort the coupons by category in expiring order so they're easier to clean out. The coupons that will expire soonest go in the front of that category. I created my coupons based on what made sense for me and what I had the most coupons for. You'll notice below that air fresheners is separate from cleaning. I would put them together, but there are just far too many coupons for air fresheners alone, so they needed their own category. You should do what works best for you, don't create your coupon organization based on what a couponing pro does (not saying that I am by any means, ha ha).
The purple file contains all food items. The very front pocket contains all of my free item coupons so that I make sure I use them all before they expire. The food categories I have are: baking, beverages, breakfast, cans/jars, condiments, dairy, frozen, grains/produce, instant meals, meats, snacks: healthy, snacks: junk.
The white file contains everything else that is not edible...at least not for humans. =] Again, I keep free item coupons in the front pocket that is unlabeled. The categories I have in the white file are: dog, misc. household, paper, medicine, body, face/make-up, hair, oral, shaving, air fresheners, cleaning, laundry.
The first thing I do is separate all of the coupons so that the like newspaper inserts are together. Then I go through each pile and pull out the coupons I want to clip. I only clip what I know I'll use. I subscribe to my local newspaper and receive the Friday-Sunday papers just so I can get the coupons. I actually receive two newspapers in the mail. It's the same paper, but I just get them for the coupons. They say you should purchase one paper per person in your household. I agree. Even though there are only two of us, I enjoy being able to get twice the deals on great sale/coupon match-ups.
After tearing out all of the coupons I'm interested in, I staple the like coupons together. It makes it a lot easier and faster to clip. It also allows me to sort through my coupons faster in the grocery store since I don't have to sort through double the coupons to find what I'm looking for. It's a lot of staples being used, but it's so worth it for me.
As I'm clipping the coupons, I sort them into two piles so I can file them faster. I just stack them up next to the file they'll be going into.
After I finish clipping, I sort one pile of coupons into the categories they will go into. Once this is finished, I can go through my file and put them where they belong and weed out expired coupons.
My method of coupon organization takes me about 30 - 60 minutes, depending on how many coupons I have. It's well worth it for me because coupons are money. I have been couponing all of my life and really got into it when I became independent in Utah and needed to save on my groceries. Couponing has saved us so much money and Chris and I really enjoy searching the grocery store for deals that we can match coupons with. If it's too much work for you, start small -- just use an envelope to hold your coupons. You can always move up to a file like I have or a binder.
If you'd like to print coupons from the internet to get started, you can visit my other blog, Real Simple Saving Methods, and visit all of the coupon sites I have listed.
I think I prefer your method better. I am working in the office today. I was hoping to target the attic this week,but that will wait for tomorrow. My kids are off from school. I am using some of your ideas for organizing my imcoming mail. Will post tomorrow. Thanks for sharing your post.
ReplyDeleteCoupons take work! Good job on an alternative method. There are many out there. I made a binder like Toni's a year or so ago. It was great at the store and for finding what you needed, but it takes a lot of work sorting and filing all the coupons.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking to my Organizing Mission link party!
Great idea!
ReplyDeleteYou've got me looking at my coupon file and wondering why I never thought to arrange my coupons by expiration date; I just go through each category every so often and pull out the expired ones. However, I don't have as many coupons as you. I'll have to give that a try and see if it's a timesaver for me.
ReplyDeleteI also like the idea of putting the free coupons in the front.
Thank you for sharing your coupon sorting method. The binders have not worked for me and I was having a hard time finding an organization method that did not contain a binder. I do love the idea of 2 books so that there is more space to sub-divide catagories.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I found this post because I had been mulling over the idea of doing essentially the same method after trying several different methods that just didn't work for me. I'm so glad that I'm not crazy and that someone else had the same thought and made it work for them. Now all I need to do is clip and sort all those coupons! :)
ReplyDelete