Coupon Organization

Another question I get asked is how I organize my coupons. After five weeks of being gone my coupons were a mess! Kirk didn't want to throw anything away which is fine but left me in coupon overload when I returned and an accordion file that just couldn't hold it all:


Just a mess! It was taking me twice as long to cut coupons because of all the digging I had to do:


And this is the after:



What I did:

- I took all the loose coupons and filed them in separate envelopes

- I cut out all the printed coupons separately, threw away what had expired and filed them in envelopes

- Then I took my oldest coupon packets - from way back in March and went through each packet individually to pull out any unexpired coupons that I might like to use, cut them out and filed them in the envelopes

- By the time I reached the end of April I reached the packets that had more unexpired then expired coupons and I filed those away uncut in the accordion file - I hate cutting coupoons and MUCH prefer just to cut out what I need when I need it - now that everything is filed coupon cutting will go much quicker.

In general I go through my old coupons as soon as I hit the back of the accordion file. This keeps my coupons from getting out of control and takes a lot less time then what I did today!

And a cheap way to file your loose coupons is just to take large envelopes and label them as you need and fill them up! So easy.



My categories (which by no way is the best way to do it but in case you're interested):

- Bakery (bread/baking like Bisquick and cake mixes)
- Drinks (juice/coffee/tea)
- Cereal/Boxed goods/Canned goods (yea, it's a weird mix but when I started I didn't have many cereal coupons then I had too many - I may need another envelope)
- Non-Food
- Dressings/Pasta Sauce (pasta sauce, jam, salad dressing - and pasta 'cause I didn't have anywhere else)
- Frozen foods
- Refrigerated foods (yogurt, biscuits, meat)
- Snacks/Crackers
- Restaurant
- Expiring soon - I do this one whenever I clean my files so I know that next Sunday I'll need to go through it and see if there's anything I want to use just before it expires - plus I know that after 6/30 I can just trash them all :)