Thursday, April 14, 2011

Coupon Organization - THE BINDER

The entire time I have been couponing I have avoided THE BINDER method of organizing like the plague.  I do not want to be one of those crazy looking extreme coupon ladies.  I feel like a binder will put a huge bullseye on me at the checkout that says, "scrutinize every coupon I have, I am trying to get everything for free" or "Beware, I have 25 coupons for all 25 of these cans of green beans, but wait, I also have 25 store coupons for them too".  It's hard enough getting through the checkout without feeling like you are ripping the place off, without looking like an "Extreme Couponer".

Anyways, as I have been using more printable coupons and taking time throughout the week to gather information and it has gotten out of control.  Sheets and sheets of coupons everywhere, clipped coupons in piles, stacks of inserts and then there are all the coupons that you get in the mail, etc...needless to say intervention was needed.


The Flylady recommends doing a journal type thing to keep your cleaning and household affairs in order so I figured I could do it all in one.  I keep my zone cleaning lists and weekly cleaning lists in plastic sleeves so I can just use a dry erase marker to check off what I have done. 

See?  When the week is done I just wipe it off and go to the next zone checklist and start over with my weekly checklist.  This way I'm not printing out stuff every week (save those trees!)

Ok, back to the point.

So my cleaning stuff needed a place and now my couponing stuff is going with it too.  Here is what I have so far.

 I stuck a little zippy bag in the front and have been putting the coupons I plan to use my next trip in there.  I still want to use my small accordion file so when I am ready to go they will go in there.

 All my printed coupons that I haven't clipped are in sleeves.  

Going to try keeping all my inserts together and clipping as needed.  We'll see how this goes.  I put the date on the insert on the front of each one.  This way when I visit my saving sites and they say coupon for ___ is in the 4/10/11 SS, I can grab it easily.

I'm still not sure how this method is going to work for me, but for now all my coupons are organized and in one place :)  However, I don't plan on lugging this thing to the store though...

So how do you all keep your coupons in order?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I keep going back and forth on what I'm doing organization wise. I used the binder method since I've been clipping but the sleeves kept breaking and now that I'm having to condense stuff due to space, I know have each week's inserts in little folders in a pull out drawer. Just started that so we'll see how it goes. :-/