Repost: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I posted this last week, but it appears to have been deleted during all the issues Blogger was having. I apologize if you have already read this one.

I've shared before that part of what makes couponing such a good hobby for me is my obsessive love of organization. After 4 months of couponing, I realized that my current system wasn't working for me anymore. You can see my post here about how I was organizing my coupons. I liked this system for how easy it is to maintain. But I was frustrated when I would get to the store and find a great sale or clearance on an item I didn't pre-clip the coupon for.

So I decided to change my system so I can have all my coupons with me when I shop. And I knew the 7 hour car ride to our vacation destination would be a great chance to clip all my coupons. After I had all my coupons clipped, I sorted them into categories.

Choose categories that make sense to you. You can organize by product type, product name, or insert date. I chose to organize by product type and chose categories that I would remember. Someone might wonder why I file canned fruit under "Produce" and not "Canned Goods" or why dishwasher detergent goes under "Household" and not "Cleaning Supplies". But it works for me and I know where to find everything.

I got this box at Target for $4.99 and the cute flags for $3.49. You could do this without the cute flags but what fun would that be. The envelopes were 5x7 leftovers from our wedding invitations.



The envelopes that are tagged on the left are the products and the tags on the right are for particular stores. I cut open one side of the envelopes so the longer coupons would fit.

A thing of beauty....if I may say so.