Ahh, so you've decided you want to start couponing and have bought your Sunday Paper and gotten all of your inserts, so what do you do now?? There are quite a few ways to organize your coupons, and because it's my favorite I'm going to start with the way I do mine.
I organize my coupons using the binder method. I clip all of my coupons and place then in my binder, which i split in to sections.
Step 1: Choose your binder. It can be a plain white binder which you can decorate, it can be a color binder, or it can be a zipper binder. Mine is hot pink, haha. You also have to choose your size, do you want a small binder or a larger one? Mine is 2 inch Binder, I like it, it's not to big and it's not to small. If you're not sure if you will like the binder method or you don't want to spend to much start with a smaller one and see how it works for you.
Step 2: Organize your coupons. I use Baseball card Inserts to organize my coupons. The one problem with them is that a lot of coupons won't fit in the inserts without being folded. You can of course use other things to hold your coupons like 4x6 photo sheets, they are big enough to hold larger coupons without having to fold them.
Step 3: Dividers!!! To create Dividers I decided how I wanted to split my binder up and printed the sections on a piece of paper. I stuck that in a page protector and stuck it in my binder. Then I bought Tabs, and used highlighter to make them different colors before labeling them. I really like it because it is easy for me to flip to a section in my binder.
Making Categories:
You do not necessarily HAVE to create categories for your binder, but I love it, it makes it so much easier. If you decide you don't want to make them, you don't have to, but if you're spending hours searching for that one coupon you need it may be a wise Idea. Remember, it's your binder, you want it to make you happy BUT you also want it to serve it's purpose in helping you save money.
Step 4: Get to Clippin!!! This is the way that's easiest for me, because I normally buy at least 2 or 3 of each insert.
~ Lay out all of one insert.
~ Set them out in front of you and carefully rip off the first page
~ Hold them together and clip them all at once. BE CAREFUL!
Clipping like this is much easier than having to clip each insert one by one. =)
Another Method of organization is the CLIPLESS METHOD.
Clipless couponing is one of the easiest ways to coupon, you don't clip your coupons until you need them.
Step 1: Collect your inserts. When you get your Sunday papers take out all of your inserts and separate them by type. Put Smart Source with Smart Source and Red Plum with Red Plum and so on.
Step 2: Decide how you want to store them. You can store them separately, you can stick all the smart source in one smartsource or you can rip the pages out and put lie pages with like pages. It is all up to you, do it how you think you'll like it best. BUT be sure to put the dat on the front so you know.
Step 3: ORGANIZE. I recommend getting a Tote and some hanging File Folders. Then take all of your Smart Source and put July 31st Smart Source and then store them. Do the same for your other inserts. That would be my way of doing it, but if you want to do it another way you can.
GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN!!!!
