Last night we talked about deciding to use coupons and some ideas for gathering them. Now we need to talk about what to do with the coupons once you have them.  I know so many people who have a great desire to use coupons. They want to save money. They want to use coupons. They know that it is supposed to be super easy but they just can’t seem to make it work. Most of the time, this happens because they are unorganized. If your coupons are a mess, you won’t use them. If it is too much work to find the coupons you need to use, you won’t use them. Being unorganized dooms many would be coupon users before they even start. It is hard to be successful with coupons when you are unorganized.

The second step to successful coupon use is organization. There is a variety of ways you can organize and maintain your coupons. Successful coupon users all have one thing in common. They have a place to keep and organize their coupons. This can be a box, binder, file cabinet or flexible file. Plastic flex-type coupon organizers can be purchased at many stores. Coupon users sometimes have large ones for storing whole inserts or multiples of many coupons and well as small ones for taking just a few needed coupons on a shopping trip.  Many coupon users make their own binders. Many use a zippered binder filled with photo pages or sports card pages. This is a very popular method of organizing coupons.  A box with dividers or files can be made or purchased. Some coupon users have a shoe box or a baby wipes box with index cards used as dividers. Whatever is used, the coupons are divided and placed in categories which provide for easy location while shopping. Some shoppers prefer their coupons to be organized by category and others prefer to sort by date.

There are many methods to saving and cutting the coupons and inserts. Some coupon users will cut all coupons and file them in their coupon organizer or binder. The cut coupons are usually filed by category or product type. It makes it very easy to find the coupons this way and this way all of the coupons are available when shopping. If a surprise deal or sale is found, the coupon is already cut out and ready to use.

Others coupon users cut only the coupons they are sure they are going to use and leave the rest in the coupon inserts. When a sale or deal on a specific item comes up, they can go back to the insert and cut out the needed coupons. If you are going to doing this, find a way to file and organize the inserts. It is helpful to write the insert date on the front of the insert with a Sharpie marker.  Be sure you print or write out a list of which coupons are in each insert. This will help you see which coupons are available and know where to find them.

Now that you’ve collected and gathered your coupons and organized them, we can start talking about using those coupons and saving money! Watch for our next blog about this tomorrow!