Getting Organized

Organizing Your Coupons

*In the beginning remember, you do not need a binder right away. Take a few weeks to assess your needs and shop around.

Option 1:

Some people may decide not to go to the "Extreme" when it comes to couponing and may not need a huge binder. These people may settle for a simple coupon "pouch" organizer. The organizers may come with pre-printed tabs to help get you started or they may come with blank ones. In a small pouch like this it may help to make more generalized categories such as: Produce, Dairy, Meats, Food, Drinks, Snacks, Personal Care, and Cleaning.

Option 2:

Others decide they want to save more money and start stocking up. This requires mass coupon clipping/printing. This is when you need to determine a storage method for your coupons. Once you start collecting mass amounts of coupons, you will notice VERY QUICKLY how they pile up and become very cumbersome. A little old coupon pouch just will not cut it anymore. Most "Extreme Couponers" opt for a 3 ring binder. There are different size rings out there and it just depends on how "Extreme" you are going to be. Some binders are cheaper than others and thus in the beginning I just got one of the cheapest so that way if my needs changed I could upgrade without losing too much money. If you watch TLC's tv show Extreme Couponing then you may have noticed almost everyone on the show has a Case-It Binder. These seem to be the best and the price reflects that. I have not personally purchased one of these binders yet. I emphasize yet!

Unfortunately unlike the smaller coupon organizers the 3 ring binders will not come with pre-printed tabs or pages/files. You will need to purchase coupon storage pages and tabs separately. Tabs can be found at most any store that sells office supplies. As for the coupon storage pages, I have found that most people including myself have turned to Vinyl Trading Card Pages. Obviously you would be able to find these at any baseball card store but they may be heavily marked up in price there. The best deals can be found online via Google Shopper!

When deciding on Categories for your tabs a lot of people/sites will tell you what they think is best but I say do what works for you. You can keep it simple like I mentioned above for the small pouch organizer or you can get more detailed and have more categories. It really depends on who you are, how you work, and your personality. As of right now my needs and my personality helped me determine that I wanted to keep things simple and I have limited categories. In fact my specific categories are the exact ones that I mentioned above for the pouch organizer. Everyone is different!

When you start printing out mass quantities of coupons you want to print out any and every coupon that you not only need now but think you could need or use some time in the future. That is what the binders are for. Store all of these coupons that could come in handy at a later time into your binders and then when in search for future coupons for stuff you need or for match-ups always check your binders in addition to searching online. Online printables don't last forever so you want to grab 'em as soon as you see them and store them in the binders.