Organizing Your "Carry To Store" Coupons

[jfroglet451979]

I am kind of lost on what categories to put in my binder. Here are the ones I have so far.....

• Beverages/Snacks
• Breakfast
• Cleaning supplies (laundry soaps, cleaners, and dish soaps)
• Household Items (toilet paper, candles, paper towel, air fresheners, and ziplock bags)
• Health and Hygiene (toothbrushes, Toothpaste,shampoo, soap, makeup razors, deodorant, lotions, and medicine)
• Can/Frozen foods
• Baby/Kids (diapers, Food, and toys)
• Condiments (salad dressing, mayo, ketchup, Mustard, cocktail sauce)

So here is my issue I am kinda new to the whole grocery shopping thing. I know it sounds kinda funny but it is true. I have always grocery shopped but I have never bought anything other than what I knew how to make. mainy pre-package stuff. Now I am trying to get my family on a budget and I have decided to start venturing out of the frozen food ailes.

So can everyone let me know what the sections of your binders are and maybe a little idea of what kind of things you would put in that section?

[MrsPinecone]

http://www.hotcouponworld.com/forums...e-coupons.html

There are numerous posts on this topic in that thread. You can also "search this forum" for categories for other threads.

[FutureCouponer]

I would imagine this has been discussed before, but I can't find it. (The search function was coming up with WAY to much of unrelated stuff)

Do ya'll cut each and every coupon and store it in your "bring to the store" coupon holder?
For those that use baseball sheets, do you only put coupons facing both sides of one page? (hopefully that made sense)
For those that alphabetize, do you alphabetize the food, household, and personal use products separately?

I used to only clip and store coupons I knew I would use, or would want to try depending on the price.. Then I started to read about freebies that people were getting, and decided if I could get those items for free I would donate them.. So then I started carrying even more coupons. Now I have outgrown my binder, in addition to it weighing a TON. I switched my food and household sections to alphabetical last week, and it made it so easy in the store to find the coupons.. However, I have yet to do the personal section because it seems like theres gonna be alot of pages with only a few items.

While I am not exactly new, I haven't couponed to the max before... Hopefully these questions will help newbies as well.

[cearhart]

HI I am new to this website I have been using coupons for quite some time. In fact there was an article in the paper about how much I save. I use a 4x6 photo album samll thin ones, with the different groups on the outside. Like dry food, cold food.... and then the coupons are on every page but not to big to carry. I would like some help on how the coupon database works though please?

[stacyg32]

Originally Posted by jlniksich Yesterday I went to Staples to get the 3.5 X 5 photo page holders that StinkyRose had used in her binder at the beginning of this post. The shelf said that the packs of ten would ring up for $3.99, but they actually rang up 50 cents each. I couldn't believe the deal they were. I hope this information will help others.

Thanks so muhc for posting this. These are the pages I sue to oranize my coupons in a huge binder. I bought 10 packs for 50 cents each!! Thanks so much!!

[Cin42382]

I clip all the coupons 1st. Then I divide it up between what coupons I will "keep" and what I want to "trade". The trade ones I keep in a box in alphabetical order. The keep ones I put in the baseball card sheets - only facing one direction - in categories such as dairy, grains, frozen.

[VivaciousJewelz]

Hey guys and gals!!

So, my current system of organization was working, but now I'm getting too many coupons and I'll have to start filing them in a binder.

For those of you that file the coupons alphabetically, do you just file them by product name (i.e. campbells) or by what it is (i.e. soup)?

OR

Do you divide them into categories and alphabetize within categories (i.e. Soup "category" but on the soup page you have campbells, progresso, etc.)?

Thanks!

[newatthis]

i do categories!

[isis]

I do catagories, but just a general sub-divison within. I use a binder, so I have a page for each, for example:

Canned Goods
Beans/Chili
Pasta (like ChefBoyRD)
Soups/Gravy
Meat/Seafood
Fruit
Vegetables

I have 2 pages for Soups/Gravy, so I group like coupons together within that page. 1 page is Campbells & Progresso. The other page is Swanson, Healthy Choice, Muir Glen.

[Hgeiger]

I have a question regarding the binders... I have SOOOO many coupons now. I have separated them into categories, I have tehm put into envies by category to put into the binder, but I am having a hard time finding the required time to keep this binder system up as well I'd like. HOW the heck are you guys able to do this easily? Do you cut and put them immediately into the binder or cut all your coups and then put them into your binder... I guess with asking this question I already figured it out... I should do the first option obviously... but, does anyone have any other pointers?