Ask the Readers: Keeping Your Coupons Organized

Each week, I plan on featuring a reader question.  I’ll try to answer it, and then I’ll open it up to readers to answer in the comments.  I’ll also add a Mr. Linky to the bottom, so if you’re a blogger and you’ve already written about the topic, please add a link.

Krista writes:

I just started couponing in March/April. I read the frugal blogs quite often to get a better sense of how to save/stack q’s etc. I went from a small coupon organizer to the binder. However, I’m finding it hard to keep up with getting the expired coupons out..and the new coupons in. Got any suggestions?

I have to admit that I’m not exactly the best person to ask this question.  I don’t use the binder method, because I know that I will not take the time to add the new coupons.  I keep my coupons in the inserts, and I just recently went through and purged about 6 months of expired coupons, so I’m not exactly great at keeping my system up to date.

Weekly Organization – add new coupons

However, if I did use the binder system, I think that I would need to organize the coupons in small chunks of time to keep it from seeming overwhelming to me.  If I see a huge pile of coupons, I tend to want to just give up rather than plow through the entire pile.

I would carve out a chunk of time each week to cut out new coupons and add them to the binder.  Sunday afternoons might work best, since that’s when the coupons come in the paper.  Or, if you have a show on TV that you watch each week, you could cut out coupons and add them during the commercials.

Monthly Organization – purge expired coupons

I would also set aside time at the end of each month to go through your binder and purge the expired coupons.  I use a little Couponizer for my loose coupons, so if I am looking through a section for a specific coupon, I tend to check the expiration date of all coupons and purge expired coupons.

How do you keep up with your coupon organization?  Leave a comment below, or feel free to link up if you already have a blog post written about this topic.  Please link directly to the post rather than your home page.

Do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in a future Ask the Reader post?  Please contact me!