Work in Progress

Yesterday while I was out and about trying to find something to put all my kids stuffed animals into, I decided I was going make me an awesome coupon organizer. For the past 2 years, I have used a cheap pocket coupon organizer that really does not organize my coupons enough for me. So while school supplies are cheap, I thought now was the time to buy the items needed to make my own coupon organizer binder.

Several years ago, Lisa Smith showed me her coupon binder and I fell in love. She was able to organize the coupons by expiration date, and by what type of product the coupon is for. She also told me the price tag on something like this. It cost her $64 dollars to make hers. That alone kept me from going out and getting me one.

So why now am I making one? I have come to realize for the past couple of years that my little organizer just did not organize my coupons enough. Nor did it hold much at all. If you were to look at my small organizer now, you can see that it is almost on life support. Another reason why I'm ready to upgrade, is that I'm tired of going to the store and noticing that something is on clearance and digging through my coupons to find the coupon for that clearance item. With my new binder, I can just flip through my plastic sheets to locate the coupon I need with ease, instead of having a jumble mess in my hands at the grocery store. Hopefully this will help me save even more money!

Many have asked, how do I make one of these? Well it is very simple and so far my only out of pocket cost is $8.99! Now I do have to get a few more things to make my binder complete, but those items should not cost too much. While at Target, I bought a $2 three ring binder. The binder I bought had canvas on it not plastic. The canvas ones tend to last longer. Also try to get a huge binder. The sheet you will use in it tend to get bulky after the coupons are added to the slots. I also made sure that there was a place in the binder to stick a calculator or pens. After deciding on a binder, next was to get the plastic baseball card sheets with the slots in them for the cards. These are quite tricky to find. Wallymart and Target do not carry these. You can get them on Amazon for $12.99 for a packet of 30 sheets. I ended up getting them at my local comic book store for $6.99 for a packet of 30. Which I would recommend buying 2 packets, because you are eventually going to use them all up. Unfortunately I bought their last one, so I only have 30 in my binder right now. When they get some more in I will have to go back and buy another packet. Another thing that I got while at Target, was a packet of dividers with tabs for binders. That way I can separate my coupons by categories as well.

Now that I got all my stuff, the long part begins, organizing my coupons. First I needed to decide my categories. The categories I decided on where: Breakfast,Dairy, and Breads for one category; Deserts for another; Snacks; Candy and Gum; Frozen Foods; Fruits and Veggies; Condiments; Pasta and Rice; Meats; Kitchen Essentials; Dental; Soap and Deodorant; Hair Care Products; Body Washes and Lotions; Razors; Feminine stuff; Bathroom Essentials; Cleaning Supplies; Baby Items; and finally Miscellaneous. I know these are a lot of categories, but the more categories I can divide my coupons into, then the more organize they are. Which will let me find them even more quickly in a pinch. You don't have to use the same categories that I have, mine are just an example of what kind of categories you can use.

After having my categories, it was time to organize my coupons into those categories and place them in their slots. I even put like coupons together to save room. For example, I have 3 of the exact same Kelloggs coupon. When it was time to slip my coupons in the plastic slots, I put those three coupons in the same slot. That way I won't waste 2 slots on the same coupon. I also put the coupon that was expiring first on top before I placed them into their slot. Now when placing the coupons in the slots, you do have to be careful not to rip the plastic or the coupon. After going through my coupons and placing them in their own little slot in the sheet, I tried to leave some blank for any new coupons that I may get. Overall it took me three hours to do this part, but once you are done, then you can just stand back and admire your new organized coupon binder! Your friends will be so jealous.

Now I should say a little about the upkeep of this. You will have to go through the binder every now and then and discard expired coupons. That should not be a big deal since you have to do that with any coupon organizer. Another thing is that any coupons that are hard to fold, for example the coupons you get in the mail or from cereal boxes, are not going to fit in the slots. You can try to fold them up and place them in there, but it just is not going to happen. Try having a different organizer for those types of coupons. I plan on using my old coupon organizer for these coupons. After wear and tear, you will probably have to replace your binder. When that happens, just go to the store and buy a new binder. All you will have to do is to transfer your sheets over to the new one.

I know that the more I use this binder, the more improvements I will make to it. When I do, I will be sure to let you all know.