Organizing Your Grocery Coupons

Over the years, I've slowly adjusted to the fine art of using grocery coupons every week. Usually, I save around 40% of the entire bill, which makes all the hassle worth it. My wife and I sit at the breakfast table on Sunday morning and go through all of the ads, clipping grocery coupons we can use and discarding the rest. However, if you religiously use grocery coupons as a vehicle for saving on your grocery bill, you'll need to construct an efficient organization system that allows you to keep track of dozens of tiny slips of paper. Read on for a few tips on organizing your grocery coupons.

Organizing Your Grocery Coupons: Filing
The most efficient method with which to organize your grocery coupons is with a simple filing system. While you don't have to use a filing cabinet (much too large), just about anything will work. When my wife and I were first married, we labeled used envelopes with different categories of coupons and stored them in an old shoe box. Now, we've graduated to using a 4X6" index card file, which is a little more manageable.

Organizing Your Grocery Coupons: Categories
How you categorize each of your grocery coupons will depend on the types of food your family eats. For example, if you purchase a large amount of meat for dinners, you might want to separate that category into chicken, beef, pork and others. Your categories are largely a personal decision. In my grocery coupon filebook, I use the following categories:

- Meats
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Beverages
- Soup & Stew
- Cereal
- Other Breakfast Foods
- Canned Goods
- Sauces & Seasonings
- Breads
- Banking Products
- Side Dishes
- Junk Food
- Pet
- Paper Products
- Laundry
- Cleaning
- OTC Meds

You get the idea. It is also helpful to have a "Misc." section for coupons that don't fit into any of your other categories.

Organizing Your Grocery Coupons: Clippings
As I mentioned above, my wife and I clip coupons every Sunday morning because the Houston Chronicle carries its largest amount of ads that day. We'll also have saved ads from previous days in the week, and we don't bother with grocery coupons on any other day. I've found that this is one way you can train yourself to be diligent about grocery coupons. If you have one set time when you clip and sort coupons, you won't be bombarded with it every single day. Further, you'll have an opportunity to move on to the next segment in organization.

Organizing Your Grocery Coupons: Plan Your Meals
When I say "play your meals", what I really mean is, "plan what you want to buy". My wife and I don't plan every meal during the week on Sunday, but we do our grocery shopping later in the afternoon. After we've clipped the coupons for the day, we decide which ones we want to use, particularly the ones that are only good for a week or so, such as a sale at the grocery store. After we've sorted all of the coupons, we go back through the ones we've saved and remove the coupons we might use at the store. This gets everything out of the way, and when we finally get ready to go, we just grab the envelope containing the coupons we want to use.

Organizing Your Grocery Coupons: About to Expire
It can be a real downer to find a coupon you want to use and then to discover that it has already expired. Although this hardly qualifies as a "World's Worst Event" moment, it can still be frustrating. To avoid this, we have a separate plastic baggie that stays on the counter and contains coupons that are about to expire. That way, we can use the coupons before they are no longer valid, and it keeps those coupons in our minds. We have also been known to stick coupons on the fridge with a magnet if we really want to use it.

Organizing Your Grocery Coupons: Why Coupons?
It might seem silly to have an entire organizational system for grocery coupons, but it really does pay off. Even if you were only to save 10 cents on fifty products, you've still saved $5.00, and most coupons are more valuable than that. You can maximize your savings by shopping at a store that will honor any coupon, which saves you the trouble of visiting multiple stores. My Grandfather, from whom I learned how to use coupons, is known to drive to six different grocery stores in one outing just to save a few dollars on groceries. He isn't poor by any stretch of the imagination; he simply understands the benefits of frugality.