Coupon organization - does the system work for you?

After pondering my hiatus from shopping, I have come to the conclusion that not only was I extremely busy with other things, but also was not excited or interested in shopping because my system was not working.  That is, my system of how I was organizing my coupons.  It just didn't work for me.

I kind of think that since my binder broke, I just didn't want to shop or use coupons.  I know that may sound funny, but it just shows how important it is to use/find an organizational system that you like.

For me, it is a single binder, meaning just one set of rings and the coupons are stored in baseball card inserts so that I can see the coupons at a glance.  I am a visual person and as I am flipping through the pages I can remember seeing a coupon. 

I sort them in alphabetical order - all the A's together, b's, c's, etc. by product name.  One page is for A's food and the next page is for A's non-food, and then the b's food, b's non-food, etc.  But I don't get hung up on alphabetizing within each letter.

When I had to use the binder with 2 sets of rings, it was too much flipping from one set of rings to the other - I really didn't like it at all.  I tried food in one set of rings, non-food in the other - too much flipping from one side to the other.  It required an extra step in the thought process - 'is this item food or non-food? Oh it's non-food... I need to flip to the other side!'

So, since the rings weren't big enough to hold all the pages, I tried A-N in one set, M-Z in the other set.  That way didn't work either.  Thought process - 'this starts with a T and that is on the other side so I need to flip sides!'  Not efficient either!

One of my best friends uses a file box and divides them up by category and she totally loves it!  I tried that too, but I couldn't see the coupons, would forget I had them, and, for me, seemed harder to flip through the coupons.  But my friend loves the file box...and it works extremely well for her!


So, my DS repaired my binder (back in March) and it took up until a few days ago (almost half-way through April) for me to take the time (all of 30 min) to switch back to my fixed binder, pull out the expired coupons, and file all the new ones I had accumulated. 


Point of all of this?  If one system doesn't work for you, or using your coupons seems like too much trouble, then maybe all that is the trouble is that you need to change your system or tweak it just a little bit. A year ago, I tweaked the binder by organizing by alphabet rather than product category.  Works much better for me now.

It takes 'work' to save money using coupons.  Each system requires 'work' to use it.  Using a system that makes sense to you means that you are getting paid (by not spending) the most for the time you 'work'.