Use these coupon organizer categories to effectively sort and prepare for every shopping trip!
Couponing is a great way to save money. Once you get the basics down, it’s helpful to arm yourself with a neatly organized coupon holder.
When I first started couponing, it took me a long time to figure out how to logically group my huge pile of clipped coupons.
So you can learn from my mistakes, I am going to explain how I set up my thirteen-section organizer for grocery coupons.
How to Sort Coupon Organizer Categories
There are many ways to sort coupons. Some people use an envelope system while others use a large three-ring binder. Perhaps the simplest method is with a plastic (sometimes paper) accordion-style coupon organizer.
The small accordion-style coupon organizers typically come with thirteen pockets. In order to use one of these effectively, you must come up with a combination of categories to make your coupon supply fit into thirteen neat little sections. An easy way to do this is to group categories based on the aisle ordering in your most frequented grocery store.
This means that if the personal care and medicine aisles are the first ones you encounter upon entering the store, then those should be placed together in the first pocket. If desserts and snacks are the last aisles visited in the store, those should be placed in the last section.
How to Organize Coupons – Basic Grocery Store Coupon Organizer Sections
My post How to Organize Coupons suggests thirteen categories based on Lowe’s Foods stores in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
This suggested breakdown can be used as a basis for separating any grocery coupon organizer into logical sections.
Sample List of Coupon Categories
To completely customize a grocery coupon organizer for your favorite store, I would suggest starting with a comprehensive list of coupon types and grouping as needed.
Below is a list of 32 common types of grocery coupons in alphabetical order. Combine coupon categories into logical groups when possible (i.e. when two aisles appear back to back).
PRO TIP: Consider putting lesser-used categories in the last sections of your coupon organize to save you time in the store.
I do this with personal hygiene products – even though that aisle is typically between bread and frozen foods at my local grocery stores, I rarely shop for shampoo and such along with groceries, so I have Personal Care as my last organizer category.
- Baby Food
- Bread
Breakfast Foods
- Canned Vegetables & Fruits
- Cereal
- Cleaning
- Coffee & Tea
- Condiments
- Cookies, Dry Snacks
- Crackers
- Dairy
- Deli
- Diapers
- Pet Food
- Dressings
- Flour & Other Baking Products
- Food Storage Containers
- Frozen Desserts
- Frozen Dinners
- Frozen Vegetables
- Household Supplies
- Meat
- Medicine
- Oil
- Paper Goods
- Pasta
- Personal Care
- Rice
- Sauces
- Seafood
- Seasonings
- Soups
Coupon Binders (kit and organizers for sale to make your job easier)
There are so many ways to go about gathering your coupons. I have seen people use photo albums, baseball card sleeves, envelope systems, accordion binders or even just plastic sleeves in a 3 ring binder. Whichever way works the best for you is just as good as any other one.
My sister likes the photo album method. She uses plastic photo sleeves and adds the coupons in along with a printed out page with the description of the coupons and amounts on it and all the coupons of that category gathered in the photo slots.
I like to use the either the envelope or the accordion organizer methods. They make more sense to me and are easy to access and use.
I don’t believe it matters which coupon organizing method you use, as long as it works.
It’s so easy to set up a coupon binder to organize your items and stay on top of which ones are still valid and which sales are going on. This way you maximize your time and don’t have to worry about spending money outside of your budget.
Coupons are literally free money so don’t let a penny go to waste.
Here are a few of the types of organizer inserts and kits you can use too!
- Coupon Saver Starter Pack
- Cash Envelope Binder System
- Baseball Card Sleeves
- Photograph Binder Inserts
- Recipe Card Binder Inserts
- Coupon Binder Organizer Tabs with Pockets
- 24 Pocket Poly Project Organizer
- 3 Ring Binder
Related Couponing Reading
Once you’ve learned the basics of saving money with coupons, you should find a way to organize grocery coupons that will make sorting and using them a cinch. A simple yet intuitive sorting method like the one outlined above will cut down on the time required to maintain a stash of coupons.
This post is a follow-up to my more basic Beginner’s Guide to Couponing. In that post, I explain certain tactics coupon pros use to save up to 50% on every shopping trip and also touch upon the realistic time commitment you should expect to make for couponing.
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