Guest Post - Coupon Binder

My friend Elizabeth, from White Picket Fence, wrote a great post showing her coupon binder, for Works For Me Wednesday. I use a box, but have seriously considered going to this method of organization. I would love to hear how you organize your coupons and any hints you have to make it easier for us.

Thank you Elizabeth for being my guest post today!

I stumbled across "Works for Me Wednesday", and it looked interesting, so I thought I would chime in this time around. My "Works for Me Wednesday" is my coupon binder. Before I "show" it to you, let me first say that I am not in any way shape or form one of those incredibly talented, frugal moms who can go to the store and buy $100 worth of groceries for $4.50.

If you are a "serious" couponer I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons why this wouldn't work for you. That being said, I do know what the terms catalina, oop, bogo, stacking and CVSing mean and I do clip coupons. I don't always use them every time I shop, but the majority of the time I do and I am capable of saving some money.

One of the reasons I never liked coupons is because I hated envelopes and those expanding file folder things. I try to have what coupons I know I'm going to use pulled, but occasionally I'll come across something and know that I have a coupon for it. It was irritating to pull a stack of coupons out of an envelope or folder and have to flip through each one individually. Thus...the coupon binder. I got the binder at Target when they were clearing out their school supplies. I think it was $4.00. I then bought those plastic sheets for putting baseball cards in and some plastic protective sleeves as well. I also got one of those zippered pencil pouches to put scissors etc. in.

I use the front pocket of the binder for sales fliers etc. There's a nifty little pocket for my calculator, a couple of places for pens and a business card size pocket that I put my CVS, Kroger and Marsh cards in. I also put a copy of my menu for the week in the front in a protective sheet. Sometimes if I have a new recipe or two I'm trying that week, I'll put those in too. (saves me time on hunting them down later)

I have the baseball card holders labeled and divided into categories. Most coupons fit into the slots, but some I have to fold. I try to keep duplicate coupons in the same slot and I've been able to fit quite a few in one. In the back of the binder, I keep a few protective sleeves for store specific coupons, and things like restaurants, pizza, Extra Care Bucks etc. Like I said, this may not be a good option for the "real" coupon queens out there....but it works for me! :)