With soaring prices, we all could use a little help! Coupons are a good way to reduce the impact on your wallet. Coupons will help you get even better-than-sale prices in your local grocery store, but how do we organize them? No one wants to go to the grocery store and spend 30 minutes longer just sifting through coupons. We don’t want to spend hard earned money on some fancy coupon organizer that may or may not work for us. So, let’s make our own simple coupon organizer. It won’t cost a lot, it won’t be fancy. However, it will be easy to use, easy to carry and serve it’s purpose well.
You will need a stapler and a medium-sized notebook, smaller than 8 x 10 but not a tiny pocket notebook! Try to find a notebook with a simple pocket in the front. This will come in handy later. Separate all of your coupons into piles according to type of food, how you shop or how your grocery store is arranged. This is a personal preference. You should also keep in mind the expiration dates and place them so that older coupons will be used first. The most important part is having all your canned goods coupons separated from the personal care coupons, the breads & grains coupons separated from the cereal coupons etc. When this is done, you can now decide how to put them in your notebook. If you shop for produce first, put those coupons in the notebook first. If you shop for dairy products first, put those coupons in the notebook first. Carefully staple each coupon on a page in the notebook. Be sure to leave yourself a few extra pages for each section in case you find more coupons, which I’m sure you will!
As you shop, you can open this notebook in the cart in front of you, enabling you to see right away what coupons you have. You can turn the pages as you shop and change sections according to where you are in the store. As you find a coupon you will want to use, carefully tear it out of the notebook (or use a staple remover) and place the coupon into the pocket inside the front of the notebook. It’s very easy.
At check-out, when it’s time to redeem your coupons, just open the front of the notebook and pull out all of your coupons at once. Easy!