The Coupon Craze

I've been a little obsessed lately with the idea of getting organized.  My immediate organizational need was in the coupon arena.  I once complained that there are no worthwhile ads in our little Quad Cities paper and that has lead our dear friends and family from all over the country to send gobs of coupons to us every week.  I LOVE it but we get so many coupons that I've started taking them to the ladies at work just to get them off of my dining room table.  In fact we receive so many coupons that they were starting to creep off of the table to take refuge in just about every nook and cranny of our house.  I find them in purses and luggage that haven't been used in a year, our pockets in the laundry (usually between the wash and dry stage - yuck), random drawers and baskets, closets, car consoles, the recycling bin, and even in the bottom of the dog food container. 

Here is my solution... my coupon binder.

I'm seriously in love with this thing.  It has a divided pouch for each month so I can divide the coupons into food, health & beauty, pets, and cleaning sections.  I've also included in each month's section a calendar page and another pouch for cards.  There's a place in the back for stamps, return address labels, miscellaneous cards, note pads, etc.  Hopefully I'll save a ton of money and also have the added benefit of never missing another birthday ever again.  (there is a genetic issue effecting a few of my family members where we can never get a card to its recipient on time... OK, mostly this just applies to me but whatevs.)

The first official act of the coupon binder saved our family $530 on $680 of purchases in one weekend. Yep, we only spent $150.  Now Ryan is not as psyched as I am about the binder, but he's on board.  My honey-bunny looked for savings and used the coupons, too!  Here is the proof:

Ryan found a $519.99 coat that was marked down by $300 and then he used his coupons to get another $150 off.  He only paid $74.89 for his new coat.  (And yes, for those of you who say a deal is only a deal if you really need the item, he really needed a new coat.)

The rest of the savings were off the grocery bill (including the dog's grocery bill).  Gotta love that!

I'll admit that it took me about a week to get this binder put together, but now that it's done it takes no time whatsoever to maintain it.  I can't wait to see how much moolah this saves our family this year... assuming that I don't ditch it in a few months.  But with savings like ours this weekend I think it'll keep me motivated.