You all know I like the no-clip coupon system – it’s easy, quick and works for me at this stage in my life. But I know some of you may want a different system. One of the most popular ways I read about on other frugal blogs is the Coupon Binder System.
Now in the interest of full-disclosure, I will tell you that I tried this system when I first started out. I was totally gung-ho for the first two weeks, but quickly petered out. That’s when I knew I needed something lower maintenance.
However, there are many benefits to clipping and sorting all of your coupons into a binder. The two biggest are:
- You have all your coupons with you when you go to the store, organized by category, so if there are unadvertised deals, you can easily find a coupon to better the price
- You go through your coupons more often, so you don’t end up with a bunch of expired ones (if you “like” KOAB on Facebook, you may already know that I just had that experience at Target – so frustrating!)
At the blogging conference I attended last week, I got to meet Laurie from Passionate Penny Pincher. She recently converted to the coupon binder system and is loving it. A few weeks after her switch, she put together this helpful video tutorial about her coupon binder.
If you are looking for a more detailed way to organize your coupons, I think you will really appreciate her video. Go check it out and say hi from me!
(For more on how I organize my coupons, you can refer to these posts: The No-Clip Coupon System, Part 1 and Part 2)
Tell me: How do you organize your coupons? What system works best for you?
I was a casual couponer until my husband got into the mix. Now we buy a ton of papers each Sunday and he bought a coupon binder to get them all organized. There is one problem – he does the cutting and I am supposed to do the stuffing. Except I don’t like to do the stuffing. It is boring and takes time. So right now we have Sunday’s coupons sitting on our dining room table in neat stacks next to our binder. I know I will have to put them away before Shabbos but I am not pleased about it. We have to come up with a new system. Any suggestions?
Thanks so much for sharing Mara!
One tip that might help Frayda – I keep my clipped coupons in a folder in my binder, and then when I’m stuck in carline or while my kids are in gymnastics/baseball/whatever, I just stuff while I’m waiting. (I also throw out expired coupons as I go). You’re right – it definitely takes time but makes life so much easier at the grocery store!
I looooove my binder . One tip I would say for anyone who has rheumatoid or osteoarthritis in their fingers: get the photo sheets that have four big pockets rather than the oft-mentioned trading card sheets. A bit more expensive but not that much. So, so much easier to use!
We’re a half binder and half inserts family. Because of keeping kosher, I find that there aren’t that many kosher food coupons to clip so I’m clipping them and putting them in the binder. This is especially true of either long expiration dates (more than 3 months say) and things we’ll have to/likely to buy anyway. We use the baseball card sheets. Depending on the week I clip out maybe 10-15% of the insert coupons. I then save the inserts usually for some money making CVS deal with products I wouldn’t buy otherwise. We also go in spurts. I just bought a bunch of TP and Kleenex so I’ll probably won’t clip any of those until the Fall because I know i won’t need it.