Update

To Clip or Not to Clip……

Last modified on 2009-07-24 21:27:29 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

The question for all couponers!  I have been using coupons now since March and keep trying to perfect the method.  At first I thought I would follow the CouponMom.com suggestion of just writing the date of each weeks coupons on the top sheet and filing them in a folder ready to pull.   Ah….didn’t work for me.  I found it was a real pain and time consuming task to pull the coupons while making out my grocery lists.  The coupon pages were hard to flip through to find what I was looking for and tended to slide all around.

So on to the next method…. Every Sunday night I began clipping out all the coupons and filing them by category in the small baseball card sheets.  Worked really well when preparing the  grocery lists but the biggest problem was I had to fold many of the coupons to fit in the pockets making it hard to see what they were for along with the expiration dates which I had to turn the page over to read.  Here is a picture of the binder and I even upgraded the binder to one that had rings on two sides.

I thought it was going fairly well until I got tired of clipping tons of coupons that I would never use.  I also really dislike having to purge the expired coupons especially after coming home from a two week vacation and finding much of my stash expired on 6/30.  The pile I threw out was huge and to think I had taken time to cut all of those out had me rethinking my system yet again.

So on to my third attempt ……  I am now filing again by the Sunday date the coupons came out (all the blogs will tell you the date to find the coupons) but I cut the pages into singles, match up all the multiple copies and them place them in 8.5×11 clear plastic sheets.  I no longer have to cut out every coupon unless I use it, the products are large and easy to see, the expiration dates are clear, the pages are easy to flip through, I can still see what coupons I have, and it is easier to purge.  I still have some of the card pocket pages in the front for coupons that come in the mail or other miscellaneous store coupons.

Right now I am working off two systems because many of my coupons are already cut but I am enjoying my Sunday nights much more now that I only have a 15 minute filing job verses a 2 hour clipping and filing job to do.  My mom also saves me her coupons which come from a different paper.  They never matched up the same and I had to cut hers separate and then find the matching ones to file them all together.  Now I can just split hers apart and skim through my book to add hers in.  Much much easier!

I think I have found the perfect solution for me, and I have not come across anyone else who files this way so hopefully it will give you all some new ideas to conquer the worst part of couponing!

Organizing all those coupons!

In order to use your coupons effectively they must be organize.  Generally there are two schools of thought as to how to organize.

1.       Create file folders and place full inserts into the files by date.  Although this sounds the easiest to do and many successfully do it, I found very quickly that it was not for me.  Not only did I never really know what coupons were there, I missed many of the sales that I could have used coupons on.  This is the way couponmom.com will tell you to organize and if you use her system and depend completely on what information she’ll give you it will work but I found looking for each coupon incredibly time consuming when planning my trips to the market.

2.       Clip those coupons weekly! - No this is not fun but on a Sunday night if you are a TV watcher and the kids are in bed it is an easy task.

Obviously I am a clipper, which means every Sunday night I take my ads and start cutting while watching the drama going on in Wisteria Lane. (Desperate Housewives for those of you who may not know) Some nights I may travel the world on the Amazing Race while cutting out Pringles coupons, really it can be exciting.

A few tricks to get the job done faster:

• Pull all your inserts apart while matching up pages so that when you begin cutting you will do up to 5 pages at a time. Make sure they stay lined up or you will lose coupons by cutting through the bar codes.
• There are many methods for actually storing your coupons but what I found that has worked the best is a zipper binder with page dividers and trading card holders. These holders can be found at Target, Walmart and Kmart in the trading card section for about $4.99 each. I would start with two sets but ended up needing a third just recently. So you just started couponing and are already down $20 for supplies, don’t worry you will make that back in no time at all.

Now what to do with the binder - this depends on your definition of organized.  I have mined separated into only 6 sections.  Food, Toiletries, Pets & Miscellaneous, Kitchen & Cleaning, Internet Printables, and blinkies.  I have a few full size 8×11 pages in the front to hold coupons I know I will use such as $5 off a $60 order or 10% off whole order.  Some will make many sections and narrow the categories down even more.  I have considered doing that but haven’t decided whether that will cause more or less work for me.  It would be easier to find coupons when planning the trip but will take longer in the filing.

I personally don’t take the whole book to the store but some do, if I didn’t have my daughter with me that may be more feasible but for now I plan the whole trip from the ads, make a list and take out only those coupons needed.