Smart Spending: Organized Coupons = Big Savings!

Picture this: Carrie Couponer is standing in the check out line at the grocery store when she realizes she can’t find the coupons she had planned to use.  She knows she cut them out of the paper. She thought they were somewhere in her purse hiding among the hand sanitizer, loose change, 50 pens and lip gloss (which was free at CVS last week with the sale and manufacturer coupons!).  Where are those coupons?  By the time she finds them, she has long since left the store with the higher priced items.  Sound even remotely familiar? 
 
The moral of the story is that being organized when it comes to your coupons will save you a lot more money than being unorganized.  You have to be able to find your coupons when you need them.  Many new couponers simply give up couponing because they get frustrated with organization. The good news is that there are some very effective and manageable ways to organize your coupons that will increase your grocery savings tremendously.  There is no one method that works for everyone, but there are some methods that work much better than others.
 

Popular coupon organization methods: 

• Accordion-style file
• Envelope in the purse
• A lunchbox or shoebox with dividersA plastic box made for index or recipe cards
• The binder method

 
Accordion Style Organizers, Envelopes and Boxes
 
The organization methods that involve filing coupons one in front of the other have their benefits.  The accordion style, envelopes or small boxes are often small enough to put into your purse and they are usually lightweight.  If you don’t use many coupons, these types of methods may work very well for you. The downside to these methods is that they make it very difficult to see what coupons you actually have.  When you are in the store searching for a coupon, you will spend a lot of time flipping through each envelope or section and looking through each stack.  It is very easy to let coupons expire with these types of methods because you can’t see the coupons easily.

The Binder Method
 

The binder method involves filing coupons in baseball card holders, dividing them by product type and storing them in a three-ring binder.  This method takes couponing to a new level of organization and allows you to find what you need, when you need it.  When I first started couponing nine years ago, I used a traditional accordion-style organizer. It worked for about a month but I quickly needed a more effective method. I was frustrated because I couldn’t find the coupons I needed when I was making my grocery list and when I was shopping in the store. I was also having trouble fitting all my coupons in the accordion style organizer.
I discovered the binder method in 1999 and have used it ever since. I will admit that the binder is bulky and certainly doesn’t fit in my purse.  I have decided that lugging it around is like weight lifting and I am burning a bunch of extra calories while saving a ton of money.  Although the binder method is not for everyone, it is my favorite method and has worked beautifully for me.
 
Benefits of using the binder method:

• A binder organizer can hold far more coupons than most accordion files, envelopes or recipe box organizers.
• Each coupon and its value are visible, cutting down on the time it takes to find a coupon when you are looking over the sales ads or shopping at the store.
• Expiration dates are easier to see and you are less likely to let a valuable coupon expire.
• You can quickly flip to the pages for the section of the store you are in and see all the coupons you have available.  This is especially important if you run into an unexpected or unadvertised deal (which happens to me almost every time I shop).
• The binders fit easily on the child seat section of the cart so flipping through the pages as you walk through the aisles is simple.

• Binder organizers are easily expandable.  As your coupon inventory increases, add more coupon pages to your binder.
• Many binders have pockets with room for your sales ads, calculator, pens and store reward cards. 

Create Your Own Binder Coupon Organizer

You can easily make your own binder organizer with any three ring binder (either zippered or not), baseball card pages (found in the trading card section of most big box stores) and tabbed dividers (found in the same big box stores or office stores).  I recommend labeling the tabbed dividers by product type so you can see all the coupons for a specific product in the same section.  Here are the tabbed divider labels I use on my organizer:

• Baking
• Beverage
• Bread
• Canned
• Cereal
• Cleaning
• Condiments
• Dairy
• Deodorant
• Entertainment
• Feminine
• Frozen
• Hair
• Laundry
• Meat
• Oral Care
• Over the Counter
• Paper & Plastic
• Pasta & Rice
• Pet Care
• Salad Dressing
• Snacks
• Soap
• Store Coupons

You will need at least 24 baseball card pages, one for each tabbed divider section.  Soon after you start using the binder method, you will probably want to add at least another 24 pages.
 
File your new coupons every week so you don’t end up with a backlog of coupons. Bring your organizer with you to your child’s extra curricular activities and file while they are in ballet, soccer, music lessons, etc.  If you watch a favorite television show each week, that’s a perfect time to be cutting and filing coupons. Remove your expired coupons once a month and then send them to our military stationed overseas. They can use manufacturer coupons that expired up to 6 months ago at the commissaries on base.  For a list of couponers whose families are stationed overseas and can use your expired coupons, see my website at http://www.smartspendingresources.com/resources.html.
 
If you want to see a picture of my organizer or (warning – blatant sales pitch coming your way) you would rather purchase the binder organizer inserts than put them together yourself, see my website at: http://www.smartspendingresources.com/services.html .
 
Each time you go through the cycle of filing coupons and shopping with your organizer, you will become more efficient and save more and more money. Don’t be surprised if other shoppers stop you in the store to marvel at your organization and fantastic savings!
 
Good luck organizing and please feel free to share your coupon organizing suggestions and feedback.  And remember……..it’s your money – spend it wisely!