Organizing coupons

So I wanted to wait a while before the next coupon post in hopes you would order your subscription to your paper and have the coupons to organize them.

There are really 2 ways that are great for organizing coupons.  They are clip and no clip.  I will first explain the clip.

Clipping coupons simply means that every week when you get your coupons you cut out every coupon and then put them into clear baseball sheets categorized by what they are.  The clear sheets I'm talking about are pictured below.

There are some benefits to doing it this way and there are also some negatives.  One positive aspect is you know exactly what coupons you have.  This helps when you go to the store and you find an item on sale and wonder if you have a coupon for it.  You can quickly turn to that section pull out the already cut coupon and you are good to go.  A huge negative to this is the aspect of time.  When I first started out couponing I would find myself spending hours and hours clipping coupons only to throw away a giant bag of unused coupons when they expired.  After having our second kid I decided I had to find another way because I did not have the time or the energy to continue this route.  If you have the time then by all means this is the way to go.

The second method of organizing coupons is the no clipping method.  My method now.  Each week when I get my Sunday papers I pull out all of the coupon inserts.  I order 5 Sunday papers so I have 5 of each insert.  I then take all of the same type of insert for ex. all the red plum inserts and layout each page together and then neatly stack it back into the booklet it came in.  This helps so that when I need to cut out a coupon, with one cut I cut out all 5 coupons instead of making 5 individual cuts.  I then go to my favorite website fabulesslyfrugal.com.  On this website they have a listing of all the coupon inserts each week and what coupons came in each.  I quickly print off the list and then tape it to the front of the corresponding coupon booklet.  And that is it.  My prep time each Sunday is maybe 30 minutes and I am set for that week.

I store each coupon booklet in a clear sheet like the ones below.

The benefit of organizing your coupons this way is it takes way less time!  A downside is that if you are at the store and you find an item you know you have a coupon for you have to quickly cut it out.  However you don't waste time cutting out coupons only to throw them out when you don't use them.  This is my recommended method.

If you are just starting to  coupon and haven't ordered your papers yet... there were doubles for Albertsons in this weeks paper.  For $10 I will give someone a one on one lesson with 5 sheets of doubler's and whatever coupons you need to get the great deals this week.  I will also set up your transactions for you.  I only have one available for either today or tomorrow.  The doubler's expire tomorrow night.  So comment quick if you want the lesson. 

My next coupon post will be on how to figure out deals.