Though coupons, in addition to sales and other special offers, can save customers large amounts of money on their grocery bill, special night out, or on regular household items, many customers lose out on big savings because of disorganization. They might leave their coupons at home when they go to the store for a shopping trip or carry with them a collection of coupons so disorderly, they are unable to find what they need while shopping. Taking time to organize your coupons is an important part of enjoying the savings they provide. If you are going to make the effort of clipping and storing coupons, it pays to keep the collection organize and easy to manage. There are several options coupon clippers can use to organize their coupons.
Organize Coupons by Store
The first method of organizing coupons is to organize by store location. By keeping all of the coupons for a specific store in one place, customers can easily reference those specific coupons whenever shopping at that store. For example, customers can keep all of their Walmart coupons in one folder, their Publix coupons in another folder, and their Target coupons in another. The customer can then keep all of these separate folders in a binder labelled “Coupons”. If a coupon is from a manufacturer, you can organize it into the store category where you plan to use it. For instance, if you always buy toothpaste at Target, keep your toothpaste coupons in the Target file.
The disadvantage to organizing this way is that you miss out on increasing your savings by using a coupon with a store sale. If you only have access to your toothpaste coupons while shopping at Target, but Walmart has a sale on toothpaste, you will not be able to increase your savings.
Organize Coupons by Category
Organizing coupons by category can be done in one of two ways. You can organize first by location and then further organize each store by category. You can also organize your overall collection by category.
To micro-organize location coupons by category, organize your coupons by the type of product the coupon covers. For example, you can create a “Walmart” folder with dividers labelled “food”, “household supplies”, and “tools & equipment”, which may then be divided into smaller categories. For example, the customer’s “Food” section may contain separate dividers for “fish”, “toppings”, and “meals”. Likewise, the “tools & equipment” section may contain separate dividers for “kitchen appliances”, “outdoor tools”, and “indoor equipment”.
Organize Coupons by Type
Inside of each category section, customers can organize their coupons by type. Type refers to the discount offered in the coupon itself. For example, you can keep all of your coupons for a specific item together, but than further organize the coupons into the type of discount offered. For instance, “Buy One Get One Free”, “Buy One Get One Half Off”, and “20% off” coupons would each be filed together. You can create dividers for this type of organization, or simply file your coupons in order. This method allows you to quickly see the available discounts and determine which coupon is going to save you the most money on an item without having to shuffle through all of your options.