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Organizing Coupons

You have read through THE BASICS and are on Step #2 – Clipping the coupons and ORGANIZING your coupons. (Remember…CLIP ALL OF THEM!!!)

You have your collection of coupons scattered all over the dining room table or the living room floor, or wherever you have designated to be Coupon Ground Zero.

How do you efficiently organize them?

TipNut has a great post about the different methods for Organizing Your Coupons. This process is still evolving for me but, I use the Envelope System. If you find this system doesn’t work for you, develop what works for you and let me know in the comments below.

I have a box with about 25 small letter envelopes in it. They all have labeled index cards stapled to the back of them. They are organized alphabetically by main category. For example the beginning of my box looks like this:

Baby products – Baking Bread – Canned Foods – Cereal Cleaning – Dairy Desserts…and so on…

I am constantly adding more envelopes as I get more coupons, and as other envelopes get too full. For example, recently my goal was to add sub-categories to the Canned Foods envelope. I need one for canned veggies, soup, fruit, etc.

The more envelopes you have the easier finding the ones you want becomes. Don’t worry, if you are just starting. Go with basic categories and add more as you go.

I also have an envelope for each specific store at which I shop. Often store specific coupons will print out during checkout. Shopping lists and other coupons you are going to use for your weekly shopping trip can also be stashed in these envelopes.

I have a separate organizational folder for restaurant, department store coupons and rebate forms. I keep the receipts that I need for rebates and rewards in here. I discovered they were always in my way when I put them in an envelope in my coupon box. So they moved into their own folder, and life is much better.

This is the way that works best for me. If you have another way or one that works fabulously for you send me an email detailing your system and I’ll try to post it on this site!

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  • Teri Smith
    I have been clipping oupons for years, but now I am more organized than ever. I am stopped by shoppers every day commenting on my system. I have a 2-binder system. I have one binder with baseball card holders and I put all my grocery coupons in them that expire that month. I have them divided by category (beverage, dairy, frozen, cleaners/paper products, etc.) In the back I have a divider with chart on Walmart/Kroger and their prices for products I use on regular basis or have coupons for so I know who has best price. I also have an accordian coupon holders with dividers with other grocery coupons and I clip them on my grocery cart. I also have all my additional discount coupons in front insert pocket and post it notes inside for special reminders. Every sunday I check grocery sales ads and circle items and put "C" on ones I have coupons. At Kroger I always get double coupon deductions, but the $1 sales alot of times come out to $0. Most every week I have 51% savings. This is a lot of work but I enjoy it and the game is to see how much discount I can get. I stock up and buy several items. The sundays with several inserts of ads, I buy 2-3 more papers. I also belong to coupon websites and check several individual product companies. I hardly ever pay full price for anything, and always buy "on-sale". Dont use your coupons just to use them, wait for the sale price for more savings.
    I also have another binder in my car (and local coupon books) that houses restaurant, auto, stores kid stuff and a list of each day where kids eat free. If you are a coupon queen like me try this. My husband teases me because no matter what we do ....I have a coupon.
  • Chrissy Jones
    Thanks for a great site...just a tip I just learned as far as organizing my coupons. I bought a 1" hardback binder, dividers and the clear plastic pages you use for baseball cards ( I got lots of them). I organized it to my fav grocery store as far a how I placed them in the binder. So all I have to do is open a binder and I can see everyone of my glorious coupons (for each isle) without having to go through them 100 time is a single shopping trip. IM still so new at this (ie...the 100x I look through my coupons, until...) and working it into my own personal system....thought you might like to know...have a blessed day
    Chrissy
  • Karen
    I got one of those plastic coupon accordian files and organized my coupons by aisle number where the product is located in my grocery store. Love it!
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