How this family coupons

Earlier this week I wrote about my favorite coupon sites and mentioned that I was going to post about how we use our coupons. Well, here ya go. Keep in mind that I am an organizational freak so don't feel like you have to do things this way to be successful couponing. I mainly wanted to post this to give you some ideas on how to keep everything organized and make things a little more streamlined when at the grocery store.

1. TOOLS

The first step is having the right tools.You don't want to spend a lot of money because that sort of defeats the purpose, but I've found that having these few things really helps make this all easier.





The first tool you will need is a sturdy binder. Mine I believe is a 2 inch which is plenty enough room, but be sure it's a hard binder and not a flimsy one.

The second tool you will need will be a few sheets of page protectors, and baseball card sleeves. I got my sleeves from Ebay ( you can find 10 pages which hold 9 cards for around $4.00 with free shipping).

The third tool will be Excel, or any program like that which can sort through lists. To get started you will also need a sharpie and some time.

2. CATEGORIES

Take a few sheets of paper and label them as whatever categories you want in your binder.

We have "Baby Stuff", " House Things", "Health & Beauty", and " Groceries". Take those sheets and stick them in your page protectors.


 
I also took a sticky note and wrote the category on that so it sticks out easier and I can just flip to whatever I need.

3. Coupons

Start at the beginning of each category and number your coupon sleeves. We put brands together in one sleeve to maximize space.

* For the record...that is HUBBY'S handwriting on the numbering, not mine*

4. Sorting

Alright this is where it gets a little tedious, but I promise that once it's done it's a lot easier to keep up and stay organized. 

We made an Excel document and made separate pages for each of our categories. On each page we have 5 lists. 

1. Product ( name of product coupon is for)

2. Value ( value of coupon)

3. Expiration ( when it expires...duh)

4. Quantity ( how many we have of those coupons)

5. location ( what number it's in inside the coupon book)

This makes it easier because if we need to look up a product to see if we have a coupon for it all we have to do is type it into the search tab and Excel will find all the coupons with that product's name.

We also print this list out before we go shopping so we know EXACTLY where that coupon is and exactly how much it's for so there's no digging, mess, or drama. 

I'm sure there's a way to sort it alphabetically and make it show you when one is out of date, but I'm not that technologically advanced. Well there it is. Maybe you can take a tip or two from our little system and put it to use! Happy couponing guys!

submitted to the amazing Amanda over at Serenity Now