Coupon Clique

When I started cutting coupons this is what I used. This was my mom's old coupon clutch that she gave to me. It worked perfectly for awhile because I was not that into it. I only cut the coupons that I saw in the paper of items I needed right then.  I had no idea the whole science behind coupon cutting then until my mom heard about The Grocery Game. The Grocery Game has this whole section on their website about how to organize your coupons and I totally ignored it and kept doing it this way. I should have listened because I wasted so much time cutting every single coupon I saw. I could not even velcro this thing shut if I wanted to! One day Kate (my 2 yr.old) took it out of my purse and dropped it on the floor in the grocery store- all my coupons went everywhere! Can you imagine? All the "organized" shoppers were looking at me with pity in their eyes- so embarrasing! It took me weeks to get it back together. I say again- it was a disaster!

So then I ended up with this......

It was bigger- I thought it would work. It was a disaster too. This thing is not meant to be a coupon organizer! It is meant for receipts or bills. Trying to make this thing into grocery catergories was pretty much impossible and it was very hard to get anything in and out of it.

So then I had a big mess on my hands......

Coupons in both holders. A Months worth of coupons to still cut and about 100 coupons that were cut that needed a place to go and I had no where to put them! So I started doing some thinking. I have not seen one way to organize that will work for me. I don't like putting the coupons in the big binder in baseball card holders. That still requires you to cut everything. I don't like having everything in these little coupon books because they end up to full and cluttered- you can't find anything. I don't like how the grocery game just wants you to put the dates on the coupon inserts and stick them in a binder and then cut them when you use them according to her list. So- the best way for me was to combine a few different methods. Hopefully this will work for you too! Please leave me some comments about this or let me know what you do- I am sure this will be an ever evolving project!

The Grocery Game publishes a list every Friday for the grocery stores you shop at. It will tell you what is on sale, what coupon to use, what insert it was in and on what date. They color code the items based on if they are free, or the best deal you will get on this item-buy it, or only buy it if you need it. They also tell you the percentage saved. I typically only buy something if I am saving 50% or more. So with this list you do not need to cut all coupons. You just need to have the inserts in a clear protective sleeve in a binder- dated. Cut the coupon when you use it. This idea is great! See below.......

In one proteective sleeve I have all the inserts that were in the paper for that week- this one is for 2/7 and has 4 inserts in it. When the grocery game tells me that Tide is on sale and I have a .50 cent coupon in the Red Plum insert on 2/7 I know right where to go to cut the coupon.  I took it one step further. Sometimes you need something and it is not going to be on any list because maybe it is not on special or you just don't have time to look at the list. For that- Southern Savers is great! They have a list of all of the coupons that were in the paper and list what insert they were in. See below.....

I just print that list out and put it in front of the the inserts for the week in the same clear protective sleeve.

Then I thought, what about the coupons I know I will use all the time even if it is not on sale- they are things we use everyday and I want them on hand all the time. For that I went back to my old way. I look through the coupons every week and if it is something I buy on a regular basis then I cut it and put it in a coupon organizer- a little one so it is not super bulky.

I bought this at Target for about $7. I had to make up my own categories but it gave you the labels to do it pretty easy. Jsut make categories that make sense to you. In the zipper portion I put my store specific coupons. In the very front is where I put my coupons that I will be using on a specific trip. Then with the coupons I use all the time I cut them and put them in their proper category.

So, thankfully there will be no more cutting a ton of coupons and trying to get them to fit somewhere

and I am done with having to go through monthly to throw out all the expired ones that I never used......

I think it will be so easy to keep up with now! Sorry for the long post today but I wanted to make sure I explained why I do it this way now. I hope it helped someone that will be reading this.

I feel like I could still write for hours but I will save that for future posts.

Thanks for reading!

jm