Coupon organization

[Emerald_Mommy]

How do you organize your coupons? I've been paying $15 a month for a program called Grocery Advantage that tells you what coupons to use at what store. The program is frustrating me for multiple reasons. I've never found a satisfactory way of organizing coupons but if I could I wouldn't have to spend the money every month to save on grocery shopping. I think the program is really for people with money but no time and I have plenty of time but very little money Thanks, in advance!

[pita1213]

i keep mine in a binder using baseball card pages. i put those sticky plastic tabs on them so i could easily flip between teh catagories. i know there have been threads about coupon binders in the past, but i'm not sure if the search feature is working again or not. i like the baseball pages because i can see at a glance what is in each page instead of sifting through a file box. also if i drop it, pages might come out,, but a months worth of coupons won't go scattering in the wind. i organize them by catagory. i ptouched the pages with the tabs on them with the name of the catagory and then i have a bunch of unlabeled and untabbed ones for when i need more pages in a catagoryi keep one page protector in the front to act as a big pocket to collect the coupons i am going to use as i put the items in my cart. when i'm being good and organized, i make out my list and then pull the coupons i plan to use and put them in a few baseball card pages at teh front of the binder right behind the page protector. it saves me some time since i don't have to flip through all of the coupons while i am at the store.

as far as what coupons to use where, i mostly do my shopping at the super walmart because the grocery stores here are too expensive even on some of their loss leaders. i mostly just read the store ads for soda sales and baking products at christmas time, so i don't worry about pulling them for different stores or shopping trips.
i hope that helped answer your question. if not, forgive me. my brain is kinda on strike.

[Mommy2five]

I do the baseball card holders too. I have them sorted, and sorted by what they are, all toothpastes together or whatever. I usually see what's on sale or clearance and what I have a coupon for.

When I was in the states I did all my shopping at walmart cause they price matched other store's ads. I would go in there with a handful of adds and you could see the cashier sigh

[DancingTree]

I used to do the baseball card holders, too, but found myself spending FOREVER putting the coupons in there. It ended up being way too much work for me to do, even though it was ideal having them there and an ideal way to view them.

What I am now doing isn't as organized, but it works the best of any method that I have tried. I put my coupons in a file box based on the isle categories of the grocery store where I do my shopping (Meijer). It works well because I can take the section out of the box as I stroll down that particular isle with my cart and have all of my coupons there that apply to that isle. That way if I see something on sale that I have a coupon for, I can take advantage of it...

It also helps when I go to other stores because I can find the categories a lot easier to search. And, it takes me just a few minutes each week to put the coupons in the box, so the biggest time investment for this method as writing down the isles categories on my index cards...

Good luck to you! Coupons are so worth the trouble, but trouble they can be, especially when trying to organize!

[AmyMCGS]

Originally posted by DancingTree
I used to do the baseball card holders, too, but found myself spending FOREVER putting the coupons in there. It ended up being way too much work for me to do, even though it was ideal having them there and an ideal way to view them. 

You took the words right out of my mouth! 

I switched about two months ago to a large plastic coupon filer box that I purchased online.  It is sized to fit in the seat of a grocery cart.  It has tabs for various categories, and four main compartments.  I keep my scissors, pen, and calculator in one compartment; in another I keep envelopes of refund forms and coupons to trade.  This has been working well for me-- I can quickly sort the coupons, and, it has a tight latch so if I drop it I don't have a mess to sort again.

 

 

[Emerald_Mommy]

Thanks for your responses. I know I've seen this topic before but I couldn't find what I needed searching. Sorry if I posted this the wrong place. Another question: Do you use categories based on aisles of the store or type of product? The store I shop in has some things that I think should be together (crackers, chips) in different sections.

[Mom23boys]

I used to do the baseball card method too and found it too much for me.

I now use a baby wipe container and have index cards for dividers. In each section I have envelopes for sub-categories. Example: In the Drinks section, I have an envelope labeled: soda, one labeled tea/coffee, one labeled milk, etc. In the breakfast section, I have one labeled cereal, one labeled pancake mix, one labeled pancake syrup, etc. This makes it easier on me when I am looking for a certain item. Say I need cereal, I just pull out the envelope labeled cereal and I can see what all coupons I have for cereal.

[Telephus44]

I think I have the same coupon organizer as AmyMCGS - it has four compartments and a tight latch on it, it looks like a check file box. I used to use the binder method, but it was too hard to keep the pages right - one time I might have 3 pages worth of cheese coupons, and next months I'd only have 1 - it was a real hassle to keep up to date.

I have mine sorted by grocery catagories - for examples, I have a "snacks" catgory that includes cookies, chips, candy - even though they are in different aisles. The only two catagories I have that actually correspond to the store layout are Frozen (all frozen - ice cream to fishsticks) and Dairy (I put yogurt, cheese, milk, sour cream - anything that is found in my dairy section - in this catagory).

What I usually do is look at the sale flyers while I'm cutting and filing the coupons. I pull out the ones that match with things that I know are on sale from the flyer. I don't go shopping every week, usually about every other, and it depends on how good the sale is and how many things are on sale. I always bring my full coupon box because there will be things on sale that aren't in the flyer. I do the same thing with the drug store flyers. HTH.