Making the Most: Organizing Your Coupon Stash!

As promised, I want to share with you easy tricks to organize that growing stash of coupons and make them accessible. First, you probably noticed I have a specific way of referencing coupons (i.e. SS 9/19/10 - and if you want to brush up on the couponing abbreviations, you can see my list here).

There are countless ways to organize your coupons, but most just seemed too bulky to me, time consuming to put together and even more time consuming in the store. So here's the system I've com up with that I think fits with my "mad dash" approach to shopping (who doesn't want to shop in under 90 minutes?).

First, when I get my inserts in the mail or newspaper, I label them with a sharpie on the front with the date. The date doesn't always match the date you receive your insert. Instead, you can find the date of that insert on the folded outer edge of the insert cover.

Next, I flip through the insert and clip the coupons I know I'll use and will make good deals. If you have items you like and know go on sale for $1.00, $/x is a great coupon, especially if your store doubles. It's almost a guaranteed freebie!

Once I'm done clipping, I sort my clipped coupons into a recipe box. This recipe box came with dividers, but I also added some (each category is a food group or item group). This box really comes in handy; it's small enough to fit in a shopping cart seat and it's easy to stash in your car. Check out Michaels for these, last night they had a bunch marked for $1.00!

There's also a coupon organizer pictured above. I love my organizer. I use this to hold coupons sorted by store. As I explained before, I don't use shopping lists for my grocery trips. Instead I plan my trips ahead by gathering up my coupons and organizing them by aisle. Once I know what coupons I want to use at which store, I put them in a particular store's divider. That way, when I happen to go, all my coupons for that store are together and ready to be redeemed.

Now what to do with those inserts?

Using letter size pocket expanders, I sort my inserts by month. The great thing about inserts, their size lets you use card stock as a dividers, you don't need tabs! After the year rotates through, the inserts are expired and you can throw 'em out.

And that's it! I keep my coupon organizer on me at all times (it easily fits in my purse, so I never forget it), my recipe box stays in my car (so I can take it with me for heavy shopping) and the inserts stay at home so I can get to them when I'm looking at my shopping lists online. It's a "Now", "Soon", and "Maybe Later" system that's easy and accessible!

So you want to get started? Janie Girl is having her first ever giveaway that can help you organize those coupons! Stay tuned, it's coming this weekend!