Are you buried in coupons? Do coupons expire before you can use them simply because you're unable to locate them? Do you get frustrated when you're shopping and remember that you have a coupon for an item that's on sale and you can't find it?
Well if you've experienced any of these, here are some helpful organization ideas to help you take charge of your coupon madness.
Where can I keep all of my coupons?
1-Recipe Box
2-Three Ring Binder with baseball card holder inserts
3-Accordion style File Folder with dividers
4-Shoe Boxes
5-Envelopes
6-4x6 photo albums
7-Baby Wipe Box
Okay so how do I organize my coupons in these devices?
1-Recipe Box
Because recipe boxes are fairly small, they allow for portable organization of coupons. Alphabet dividers come standard with recipe boxes, which will allow you to organize your coupons in alphabetical order, if you wish. However, as you walk down the grocery store aisles, searching for coupons can become tricky if you have to look at each letter tab. A more effective method for using a recipe box would be to create additional dividers, using basic categories within the store, such as:
*Pasta/Rice
*Cereal/Breakfast
*Dairy
*Frozen
*Produce
*Beverages
*Household
*Personal Care
In addition to recipe boxes, some coupon users find child-sized shoe boxes, plastic food storage containers and empty baby wipe boxes to be an inexpensive and reliable method for organizing coupons.
This device allows a lot of storage space for your coupons. Many people choose this method because its so easy to see your coupons. Again, categorize them however you see fit. Many people will carry around a dry erase marker to write notes on the baseball card inserts while they're shopping. Just a little bonus! For a ready made system Check out the The Couponizer:
Inside your binder of choice, fill it with plastic sheets for trading cards (like hockey or baseball card collecting). You can also find plastic sheets with four pockets per sheet (the ones you buy for photo albums), these pockets are a little larger than the trading card sheets. Use these plastic pockets to store your coupons and keep them organized.
Separate the plastic sheets with binder dividers. You can sort each section: By alphabetical, By expiry date, By product category, or whatever you like. Do some experimenting and see which method works best for you and your needs.
You can buy zippered binders in any number of sizes, but you’ll want a size that will fit the plastic pocket sheets. These plastic sheets can be bought online, at your local card collecting shop and most department stores such as Walmart and Target.
Some ideas to store in the zippered binder:
Small pair of scissors for coupon clipping
Calculator
Pad of paper (for grocery list making)
A Price Book
Coupon sorting mat (you can make your own)
Pens or pencils
3-Accordion style File Folder with dividers
This is probably the most popular way to organize your coupons. They come in all different sizes and colors. Again, you'll need to choose categories that will make your shopping trips easy. In addition to simply choosing your categories some people go the extra step and have a folder for each store that they shop. It really depends on the number of coupons that you need to organize. Another option is to have an accordian file for "grocery items" and another for "health and beauty items".
4-Shoe Boxes
You can use this method as you would the recipe box method.
This method works well if you don't have a lot of coupons to organize. Some people choose general categories (dairy, meat, paper) and some people choose to label their envelopes by stores (CVS, Target, Grocery Store).
6-4x6 photo albums
Using a photo album for coupon organization is similar to the 3-ring binder method. For this, all you need to do is purchase a photo album, with small photo compartments, such as the type you would put wallet-size photos in. The drawback to this method is that you are less likely to be able to organize with dividers, unless you use tape along the side of the covers to note which category the coupon is placed in.
7-Baby Wipe Box
This is where you use a baby wipes container to hold all your coupons. Separate them out into different categories with card stock, or index cards, so you can find them easily. These can hold large volumes of coupons – the bigger the Baby Wipe Box, the more coupons – but it can be hard to carry with you to a store. Most people use this at home, then an envelope or baggie at the store.
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