Coupon Organization

  Okay, so I know other people have posted on this same topic, but it's such a vital tip for me that I thought I'd stress the point once again.  Coupons.  They. Are. Worth. It.

I am not an organized person.  I try to be.  Really I do.  But it's just not a natural thing for me.  My mom is the opposite.  She is naturally very organized and planned out.  I want to be more like my mom :)

When I started doing coupons, I was a mess.  In my typical non-organized fashion I would get the occasional printed/in the mail coupon and stick it in a drawer somewhere to be forgotten until after it expired.  After I started seeing how my mom was saving SO much money by using coupons (and having FUN doing it too), I decided I really needed to figure out this whole coupon thing.  So I signed up for our local (biased rag) paper and began receiving LOTS of coupons.  I put them all in a bag, took them to my mother's house and said, "how do I organize these?"  She showed me how she

 keeps a shoebox with categories and just puts the coupon in the correct category.  So I tried

 that.  But there was a problem.  My mom does not usually go shopping with small children.  I do.  I decided I needed a different system after the 3rd or 4th time my box of coupons got dumped (not totally my kids' fault, I dumped it accidentally too).  Do you know how stupid I probably looked grabbing at my own personal confetti shower while trying to keep my kids entertained/contained?

So I started looking around online to see how other people keep themselves organized.  This is what I finally decided on:

As you can see, I got a three-ring binder and a BUNCH of sport card pages (from ebay 4 cheap :-)  I can have all my store cards in the front, along with a pouch for a pad of paper, scissors, pens, calculator, receipts, pacifiers that have fallen on the floor, etc.  Then, when I shop, I just flip to the right category and can see all my coupons clearly laid out.  If I have more than one of the same coupon, they all go into the same pocket.  The pocket in the front of the binder works perfectly for store flyers.  Plus, it doesn't take long for me to clip/file coupons this way!  Bliss!  It saves me time & has already been dropped several times without losing anything out of it.  It took a couple of hours for me to set it up, but now that I have it - it is WONDERFUL!  A coupon binder works great for me!

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips/tricks, head over to We Are That Family.