Coupon Clutter

I am a big fan of coupons. I get the Sunday paper each week and spend time clipping coupons. On an average weekly trip to the grocery store, I can easily save $5, if not more, by using coupons. That quickly adds up to over a $250 savings per year.

Aside from the manufacturer's coupons in the Sunday paper, many department stores have money saving coupons in their weekly circulars. As well, many schools have fundraisers selling local coupon books with savings for local restaurants and stores. Local junk mail often includes ValPak and other regional advertising catalogs that have clip-n-save offers.

It can be easy to collect a large number of coupons. However, it can soon become cumbersome to find a coupon you need if you have to sort through dozens or hundreds of them. You can spend 20 minutes digging into your coupon pile only to find that the offer expired a week ago.

To avoid this, try to be realistic about which coupons you will use. If you use a certain brand of hand lotion and don't typically deviate from that brand, it may not make sense to keep coupons for other brands. As well, if you have three bottles of lotion stored away, enough to last for several months, you may not need to clip the coupon that expires this month.

Coupons can be sorted by expiration date and/or by type (restaurant, pets, food, cleaning, health & beauty). If there are products you buy weekly or monthly, on a regular basis, you may want to keep those coupons filed separately so you can easily find them.

If you really don't want to throw coupons out, give them away to friends and family. If you don't have a baby, your friend may like to have the diaper and baby food coupons. I have even seen people offer themed batches of coupons on sites such as Craig's List or Freecycle.

Coupons can be a great way to save money. Avoiding coupon clutter can also save you time!