Coupon and Keeping Them Handy

I have had several questions about where I get my coupons and how to I keep them organized so let me share what works for me!

I have a binder with baseball card holder sheets. I have used dividers to divide mine into sections such as:

Baking goods/Sweets
Self Care
Household
Paper/Plastic Goods
Frozen
Dairy

I know some of you will want to have more dividers and be more specific about your divisions. Again, this will only work for you if you organize in a way that is helpful to you!

Other ways to organize are to keep all the inserts together and label with the date. I need to actually see my coupons so this doesn't work for me. You can try and index card box or shoe box with envelopes. The key is organization so that you can find the coupon you need when you are looking for it! It doesn't help when you find it several weeks after you bought the product.

Now to share about where I find my coupons:

Since I am overseas, we are allowed to use coupons 6 months past the expiration date. We receive coupons from people in the states so I am able to go on post to collect them or I have friends who send them.

For those of you in the states, DO NOT buy a small town local paper. When we were at Ft Hood, I bought the Dallas Morning News or Austin American Statesman to get coupons. My mom is in Houston so she would buy the Houston paper for me.

I also go to coupons.com or redplum.com. There are two blogs that I love that also give links to coupons. They are hip2save.com and swaggrabber.com. These blogs will also let you know when a company is offering free samples. Sign up! There are often high dollar coupons sent inside these samples!

Side note: I would create an email account for just these types of sign ups to keep the junk mail out of your regular email account!

Check your magazines as well. Many times there are great coupons in those that you just skip right past.

There are sometimes valuable coupons on the product itself at the store or hanging coupons right beside the product. Use these if you need the product and don't have another coupon. Many times they will put these out though and raise the price. Take a few, store them for later and watch the price!

I know for many of you that couponing is new so ask questions and I will try to help you save money!