Answering your coupon questions!

Reader Sara wrote me an email asking a great question: "how do you keep all your coupons organized? do you carry them with you at all times? do you always plan ahead? just curious to see how you handle this because i'm sure at any given point in time, you have a crazy amount of coupons cut out and saved....i could see my purse being over taken by coupons! haha."

Once you have started to cut coupons you will quickly realize that coupons might take over your life! Have no fear, there are TONS of different ways to organize your coupons. The important thing to remember is do what works for YOU! I can not stress this enough. There is no right or wrong way, so long as you are happy with it. I do strongly recommend keeping your coupons with you at all times (I keep mine in my purse or car) so that you will not be "caught" without them. However, again you need to do what works for you. I actually use two different coupon organization methods. :)

Now some different ways to organize...

• You could invest in a coupon file folder ( I know for a fact that they are sold at Walmart and I am sure Target has them too) they are normally located in the school supply section and it is a small wallet size folder that has tabs. I organize mine by months. (you can do either months the coupons expire (I do this) or by the month you got the coupon) Example: this past Sunday...would go under July's tab, it's up to you. I also separate within each month food item coupons from household/beauty item coupons with a simple index card. For example: under the month of Sept. you would look in and see food coupons first and then find an index card followed with all household/beauty item coupons. Then would be the October tab.
• You can get a coupon binder.... I would wait and do this until you have more coupons then you know what to do with. Most likely starting out a coupon file folder should work. I will explain a coupon binder in greater detail on my blog at a later date. ( I am hoping to do a video of this!)
• Another way to organize is you can take a shoe box and create your own organizing system. For example: I have seen one woman who organizes her coupons according to items or brands so it looks like this: An index card with General Mills, one with Huggies, one with Organic Valley, one with Post, one with Dole...etc. She keeps them in alphabetic order... so when she needs dippers she knows to look under H for Huggies and P for Pampers.
• Another way ( I know too may ways right) is to keep the inserts whole. In other words do not cut the coupons out until you need them. There are tons of coupon database systems ( I am not that advance yet on my blog-sorry!) but I could show you one.. where people list the coupon and the date it was published with it. So every Sunday you could just put sticky notes on the inserts to mark the date... and then go to the database and see what coupons to cut out of your inserts (I suggest giving them a "home" in your house so you know where they are) and cut the coupons you need for that shop. A great coupon database system for this is couponmom.com

Again, organizing really comes down to you and what works for you. So think it over and don't stress. Again, think big picture! Saving money and bringing down costs. Please don't hesitate to email me with any of your coupon questions!