Spend To Much Time Organizing Your Coupons? Save Time By Reading This…

Spend To Much Time Organizing Your Coupons? Save Time By Reading This…

Years ago in order to find the best deals, you had to scour the Circulars yourself, find your coupons, do the math, price-match, look at all the stores, yadda yadda yadda.

Thanks to savvy technology and the Internet, you don’t have to search and put those deals together yourself. You have your pick of the crop when it comes to coupon blogs, even specific coupon blogs (such as gluten-free, diaper deals, Walgreens, Target, etc.).

If you need to find a deal on something, it’s 99.9% guaranteed that it is out there on a blog.

That is what we do. We, the coupon bloggers have taken that BIG headache out of your lives and bring it to you for FREE!

So we take a big chunk out of the equation, so what’s next?

My Former Method:

1.  Every Sunday morning I would head to Dollar Tree and get my papers for $1.00.
2. The rule of thumb is- for every person in your household you buy a paper.
3. So if you have 5, you buy at least five papers. I would usually get 10.
4.  Then take them home, sort, cut, clip and file in my binder.

This process could take anywhere from 2-5 hours. I would usually watch TV at the same time, so it felt like I was killing two birds with one stone.

Over time, I found a few issues with my system:

• Spending a LOT of time cutting, clipping and organizing coupons. On a big insert week, it would take even longer.
• I would have a lot of coupons that I didn’t use or need. Yes, I donated them to coupon swaps, traded, etc., but it was still money coming out of my pockets each week for those papers.

I started cutting back and only buying papers if I felt that I would use at least 50% of it.

I still felt like I was spending too much time cutting and organizing (esp working full-time, family, blogging, etc. )

Over time I gradually developed a system that worked for me. While I was frustrated, I knew that saving money was a priority for my family and I needed to find a system that worked for ME!

 My Current Method:

1. I stopped buying papers, especially when my local paper went up to $3.50 and the Dollar Tree no longer carried them for a $1.00
2. I started buying coupons by the coupon, which came ALREADY clipped! All I had to do was slide it in my binder, and I was good to go. Sometimes I would just take the coupons and run to the store if I was doing specific transactions with those coupons.
3. I use Wiz Clipz to order coupons by the coupon. (And while I could write a whole piece on the process of buying coupons and if it’s ethical–I’m going to sum it up like this. I brought a paper each week. I don’t buy the paper to read it. I brought the paper for coupons. I just changed where I buy my coupons. The same thing)
4.  Every week I look at the Sunday Coupon Preview and see what’s coming out that Sunday. If I think I will use at least 75% of the Insert, I will order the full insert from Insert Insanity.
5. After ordering the coupons that I need, I just open up the Favado App on my smartphone (can also work on iPads) and put together a list based on the best prices of that week!

If not, then I look at the coupons that I know I will use and order them from Wiz Clipz.

Wiz Clipz sells coupons in packs of 10 for $1.50 w/ no charge for shipping. If I felt like I was going to use 75% of the paper, I would order full inserts from Insert Insanity.

Related: See a list of coupon clipping services here.

And that’s my method! I spend less time cutting since my coupons come already clipped and ready to go! Also, I like ordering my coupons vs. buying at the store because I can guarantee I am getting EXACTLY what I need and not wasting money or time!

In 2019, I am still using this same method. I don’t get as many coupons as I did in the past. However, when I do need coupons, I continue to use a coupon clipping service to find and order them. To me, time is money. I don’t want to waste my time driving to the store to get a ton of papers, clipping them, and organizing them. My method of using a coupon clipping service has saved me so much time and money over the years. I highly recommend ditching the old method and try something new in 2019.

I would love to hear about some of your methods!