How to Organize Your Coupons

Everyone goes about Couponing in very different ways.  Your style of collecting coupons, clipping, planning your trips, & they way you tend to shop will help you define which method or methods of organizing your coupons will work best for you.  I tend to use a little of the Accordion File & Filing Cabinet Methods.  I have a very large stock of coupon inserts which makes cutting all my coupons for a binder near impossible.  I file my inserts by date in a filing cabinet after I sort into neat piles of 10 pages stapled together.  Pre-sorting my inserts prior to filing makes accessing the specific coupons I need quicker.  Since the coupons are separated, removing expired coupons is a breeze.  I also carry an accordion file to carry the coupons along with shopping lists for all the stores I plan of visiting for the week.  I also have an extra "slot" in my file folder to collect new coupons while I'm at the stores.  I'll go over as many different methods as possible and hopefully they inspire you to create the method that suits your exact needs.  Remember, there is no right or wrong in how you choose to organize your coupons.  Just use the information I've shared with you to help you develop a system that will be easy for YOU to maintain.

• Accordion Coupon File
• The Binder Method
• Filing Cabinet

Accordion Coupon File I love this very simple method of organization.  I have my slots labeled with the stores were I generally shop.  I can keep my current week's shopping list for each store along with all the coupons I will be using for the sales.  I also keep each stores reward/loyalty card in the slots so everything I need to save money is right at my finger tips.  I even have an extra slot for collecting new coupons during my shopping trips!  My coupon file is always in my purse so I can access my coupons for those spur of the moment shopping trips.  The downside to this method is that it is very limiting.  Accordion files can only hold a few hundred coupons and you have to dig through it to find the coupons you need.

The Binder Method This is exactly as it sounds, organizing your coupons in a Binder.  Binders come in many different variations: zipper, standard 3-ring, day planners, scrapbooks, ect.  You can fill your binder with baseball card insert sleeves or even scrapbook photo sleeve protectors that come in a wide range of sizes.  Use dividers to help organize your coupons into groups that are easy for you (sorted by grocery store aisles, alphabetically, expiration date, brands, ect...) The binder method allows you to carry a large amount of coupons with you on every shopping trip.  You can easily browse through the pages looking at clearance items, sales racks, discount bins trying to match your coupons to on-the-spot sales.  Binders are awesome shopping tools, but they do require a large amount of time to maintain them.  You must cut & file all of your coupons as soon as you get them.  You also have to consistently remove all expired coupons.  Binders are bulky to carry, easy to spill and awkward to flip through on quick shopping trips.

Filing Cabinet This is the best method to use if you have an very large stock of coupons.  I purchase my coupon inserts in bulk through a wholesales to get the best prices, so my coupon inventory is very extensive.  Using a filing cabinet, I'm able to pre-sort my inserts by individual pages stapled together for easier access.  My filing cabinet is neatly organized by date as well as type of insert.  When putting together a shopping list, I can go to my files and quickly pull out all the coupons I need for each trip.  My coupons are always tidy and easy to clip in bulk.  The downside of the filing method is that you have to plan all of your shopping trips.  Planning, pulling, cutting & moving the coupons you're going to use into a travel size organizer can take some time.  If you want a large stock of coupons, this is still the best overall method to utilize.

Please feel welcomed to share your experiences and methods.  What works for you?  Have you found an awesome tool to cut organizing time in half?  If you have photos of your current method, please email them to me and I'll be happy to post them :)