By now you should be building quite the collection of coupons. Between Mail To Home Coupons, Print At Home Coupons, Coupon Inserts & Coupons In The Store you should have no troubles locating them.
But your coupons aren’t helping you save money if you don’t have them with you, can’t find them at the bottom of your purse or forget you have them entirely! This is where organization is key to being an efficient couponer.
There are as many different methods for organizing your coupons as there are coupons available! What works for me may not work for you and vice versa. You will probably have to experiment with a few different methods before you find which one works best for you. Here are some suggestions on how to organize your coupons.
By Date
This system works well if you are focused on making sure you use your coupons before they expire. Arrange all of your coupons in order from the soonest to expire to the farthest from expiry.
This can get pretty daunting if you have a large number of coupons. It can also make it difficult to locate a specific coupon if you can’t recall the expiry date.
Alphabetically
This is another great option for those just starting out. Arranging your coupons in order alphabetically by Brand name will make sure your coupons are in order and easy to find.
You may run into difficulty with this option when a coupon applies to more than one brand name (eg Tide AND Downy). It’s part of the reason I abandoned this method.
By Category
This is the method I use. I’ve found it works best for keep my coupons organized and easy to find. I have my coupons organized into Grocery, Body & Beauty, Health & Well Being, Household & Pet. If you are hyper-organized (like me) or have copious amounts of coupons, you may want to also use sub-categories. Within each of the main categories I listed, I have them further broken down. For example, in Body & Beauty my sub-categories are Body Wash / Soap, Hair Care, Shaving, Deodorant, Lotions / Creams & Makeup.
There aren’t always coupons in every category and sub-category but I find it’s just easier to have a place to put a coupon should I find it, then have no where to put it, and it gets lost.
By Type
Keep like coupons together by sorting them into type (Mail to Home, Print at Home, Tear Pads etc). You may find you will need sub-categories within your mail categories to stay well organized.
Those are the four most common methods, but most definitely there are more out there. But now that we’ve answered the question of how to organize your coupons, you need to know where! Just as there are different methods for organizing your coupons, there are many different forms of coupon storage that you may want to try.
Envelopes
This is the first method that I used at the very beginning of my Couponing Adventure. I bought a box of envelopes from the Dollar Store and labelled each one with a month. Then placed each coupon in the envelope that corresponded with the month of expiry. Then, I tried writing the letters A-Z on envelopes and organizing my coupons alphabetically. That didn’t work either.
I made a 2nd trip to the Dollar Store and bought more envelopes. This time I wrote the Brand Names of all of the products I had coupons for on an envelope and arranged them alphabetically in a basket. It worked for a while but I found I was accumulating too many envelopes that had a name written on it, but no coupon inside.
I still use envelopes to organize my Trade Coupons and to carry coupons I will be using on a shopping trip but it didn’t last long as a primary organization method for me.
Accordion File / File Box
An accordion file or file box is another commonly used method. Again, you would set up your accordion file how every works best for you.
I’ve personally found that, these are too big for storing individual coupons. What I’ve found they work best for is organizing coupon inserts. Save yourself time by only clipping the coupons out of inserts that you are SURE you will use. Keep the unclipped coupon pages organized by which ever method you want.
Recipe / Index Card Box
This is another tool I used to organize my coupons in the beginning. You can divide up the box into sections and keep your coupons inside. This works well if you are getting started but you may soon learn that it is difficult to keep some coupons (large printables, GoCoupons) in this small of a container.
Binder
This is probably the most commonly used organization tool in couponing and is how I keep my coupons. Find a good quality binder, preferably one that zips up, it will keep any loose coupons from falling out. You will also need business card / sport card sleeves / photo sleeves to hold your coupons. Full size sheet protectors work well for big printable coupons.
Organize your binder into whichever method you’ve found works best for you. As I mentioned above, my binder is split into main categories and sub-categories with simple page dividers. I keep my un-cut inserts in the front compartment, Rain Checks in the card holders and a notepad in the back.
I find this method is best because I can carry my binder every where I go and always have access to all of my coupons. It’s also a good idea to keep a pen, calculator and small pair of scissors in your binder. You never know when you may need them!
Mix and match different methods and organizational tools to find what works best for you. If something isn’t working – scrap it and try something new!
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