I've been trying to develop a system that works well for me. I've drawn off of many other fabulous couponing blogs (see friends, family, and favorites in side bar) and found that an accordian type filing system works well for me for all my loose manufacturer coupons. If I'm in a store and see a good clearance or BOGO sale I can just open my file to see if I have a manufacturers coupon that will add up to even more savings. This is how I have my coupons organized currently... 
{Sorry it's a little messy...I DID just get back from Bilo:0}
The first tab that's folded down (and I need to fix) is "other". That's where I put coupons that don't fit into any of my other categories. The rest of the tabs are as follows:
2. Pet
3. Food
4. Household
5. Beauty
6. Dental
7. Dining out
You can design your file in any catergories that work well for you and the things you buy most often. I also keep all the weekly sales inserts(like from CVS, WALGREENS, GROCERY) inside another folder and pull them out when I need to see if I have a manufacturers coupon that would work with their current deals.
Today was my first actual trip to the grocery store with coupons in hand and I think I did fairly well considering I'm the new kid on the couponing block. I needed several things that weren't on sale so I paid full price for several items however, overall I saved $15.88 in BOGO deals (which meant many of my items were half price since I only needed one of most of the items) with my Bilo Bonus Card and an extra $8.82 with my coupons!
As you can see, that took my total from $63.05 down to $39.73! And I particularly like shopping at Bilo because we always put our Fuel Perks to good use! In fact, Trav just filled up my car the other day using fuel perks.
As I build up my stock of manufactures coupons and get better at this, I hope that I can start saving even more money by using coupons! I hope to become a pro at couponing!
Highlights from today's trip were:
Beggin' Strips: on sale 2/$6.00
Busy Bone: $3.72
-3.72-buy one beggin' strips package get the busy bone free
-1.00 instant coupon from beggin' strip package
-1.00 instant coupon from bone package good on beggin' strip purchase
=a grand total of 1.00 for my package of beggin' strips and the busy bone!
...looks like Glory got lucky!
and
2,000 Flushes toilet bowl cleaner (the kind that does the work for you---all you have to do is throw it in)$3.78 BOGO
-$1.89 in BOGO savings (at Bilo you don't have to buy 2 in order to get the savings!)
-$.55 manufacturer coupon
-$.55 manufactuer coupn (Bilo doubles most coupons up to 60 cent)
=a grand total of $.79 for my 2,000 flushes toilet cleaner!
If anyone has any tips/advice about couponing or has anything to share, please leave me a comment! It would just make my day!
Love,
Laura
2 comments:
yay for coupons! have you tried southernsavers.com yet? You can even print your shopping list and it tells you which coupons you cna use! It does most of the coupon thinking for you! Good Luck with your coupons!! I <3 Coupons!!
Welcome to couponing! You are such a great bargain-hunter that you are a natural for this. I love couponing and it always makes me excited. Once you do it for a while and you are "stocked up" on your favorites, you will hardly ever have to shop and you will only buy things when you can get them ridiculously cheap.
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