Scheduling & Organizing

I'm going to try to post everyday but you know how life gets in the way of things so we'll see how it goes. Anyway, there are 2 things I wanted to post about today...


First off, I'm only going to be posting the deals that I use or ones that I think are a really, really good deals. Saying that, I'm not going post things before the sales start as the sites I mentioned in my previous post do. I do my drugstore shopping on Mondays because the ads come out on Sundays and I do my grocery store shopping on Fridays because the Publix ad comes out on Thursdays here (they come out on Wednesdays other places). But I also go other places during the week if I have time. So my posts will generally be on Mondays and Fridays, and I will definitely post all the samples or freebies I sign up for as I find them, which there is usually at least one a day. 


Second thing or things I should say, when I first started this I got overwhelmed around the second or third week. I have a 3 year old and a new baby that I have to get in and out of the car and lug around with me while I do all of this. Because I felt so overwhelmed I decided to break up my days as I mentioned earlier. On Saturday night or Sunday I get all my deals together for the drugstore trips. I usually visit 3 to 4 stores on Mondays, but I do it all before lunchtime so I can get home feed the kiddos and put them down for their nap/quiet time. If I leave at 10 am it usually works out. For grocery shopping I usually get my deals together and make my list on Wednesday night. If you go to the Publix website and type in Montgomery, AL as your location you can see the ad on Wednesday instead of Thursday when it comes out here in Tallahassee! After I write down everything I want I search for coupons, I find most of the on the Southern Savers website but sometimes I go to Hot Coupon World and use the database there to find others. I then make my list and organize my coupons. 


Everyone has a different way of organizing this is mine-


On Sunday night I clip all the coupons from the Sunday paper and take out the ones that are going to expire in the next week to see if I can find any clearance deals with them at the stores I go to. I then put the newly clipped coupons in these organizers I have one for food, another for health & beauty and the last is for cleaners, cat stuff, baby stuff, and stores/restaurants. Once I have them sorted into these 3 categories I alphabetize them. This makes it easier to find the coupons you want while you're compiling your deals. 

I then group the coupons together by which store I'm going to. I use Post-Its to keep them together and then label them with the store name. Good thing I got all those Post-Its for free! I then put them in the front of one of my organizers in the order that I plan to visit the stores. This makes it super easy for me, I can just pull out my coupons at the register and they are all together and labeled. 

Once I get home with all my goodies that's a totally different story. I never realized how much free or nearly free things you and get with coupons, so at the beginning of my new hobby I didn't even think about storage. Well once I realized Rubbermaids and boxes full of my stuff piled up in my hallway weren't going to cut it.

We got some amazing shelves from Ikea! I love them! Plus, we got them for super cheap! Now I know Ikea is all the way in Orlando but my hubby is a handyman so you could always give me a call and he can build you some shelves! Anyway, I love my new shelves and my hallway is a lot less cluttered :)

People organize their coupons and stockpiles all sorts of different ways. Some people use binders to keep their coupons in, and others don't cut them out of the inserts and file the inserts with the date on them so they can find their coupons by the insert date and name. I do it the way I do because I like taking ALL my coupons to the store with me just in case I find any deals that I didn't plan on ahead of time. I hope this helps you all who want to join the wonderful world of couponing!