Tammy’s simple and practical system for organizing and remembering her grocery coupons is this week’s reader comment of the week. I’m going to use her system, and if you have a hard time remembering to bring your coupons to the store, you should try it too!
I use a bunch of old envelopes, each one labelled by category. They’re with the re-usable grocery bags, and always come out with me. They just go in one of my nicer cloth bags, not my purse, so I don’t feel like I need to carry it everywhere.. it just stays in my car till I get to the store or go home.
I also bring one empty envelope that I write my shopping list on. As I shop, I move the coupons I will be using that trip into that last envelope.
Tammy reuses envelopes she gets in the mail (clever) and has a fool-proof way of remembering coupons. Thanks, Tammy!
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price.
In this house, I’m the coupon guy. Most of them come in the Sunday newspapers and, fortunately, there is usually a good football or baseball game on TV on Sunday afternoon. This is an ideal time for clipping and sorting coupons during the commercials or during the frequent breaks in the action. I sort them by category and put them in the coupon holder, which always accompanies us to the supermarket.
Before a trip to the supermarket, we make a list of what we need and check the store ads to see what is on sale at which store. Then, only if the item on sale is something we need and/or use regularly, we check to see if we have any coupons for it.
Toward the end of every month, I go through all the coupons in the coupon holder (again, usually during a televised game) and pull out all the ones that expire before the end of the month. We then check to see which ones we want to use and discard the rest (in the recycle pile, of course).
At the same time, I pull out all the ones that will expire during the coming month and arrange them in order with the shorter expiration dates on the top of the pile on one corner of the kitchen table. Since the pile is in plain sight, I check it frequently to see if we want to use any of the coupons that are about to expire. If not, they go in the recycle pile.
The system works for us. On a $40-50 order, we generally save about $15-20 altogether – plus 5 cents a bag for bringing our own canvas bags.
I have a little coupon holder that I put all my coupons in. It’s small but has a lot of dividers. The last divider is used for restaurant and store coupons. That way I always have it with me, because God forbid I pay full price for anything! 🙂
Julia
just finished reading this stuff… been a fan of yours for some time and you’re a doll and terrific… continued success to you as i watch you develop your career. thanx to Bob and Kristin for their valuable time and thoughts. folks such as you will help turn our country around.
philip