Sunday, December 5, 2010

Lack of (coupon) Organization is killing me!

I posted a couple of weeks ago about how my new coupon folder was already breaking.  About a week later it really did break.  The button that the little elastic band went around to hold it shut popped off, so now there's no way to keep it shut (short of me finding a REALLY large rubber band).  I looked around locally and couldn't find any organizers that I felt would work for me.  The problem is the amount of coupons I have now.  Those of you who print a lot of coupons know what I mean.  Holly had posted to that thread about she uses a trapper keeper type folder with baseball card storage pages.  I'd looked at a few other organization methods on line and seen some that use 3 pocket to a page storage pages, in a similar folder.  I decided I would go this route and managed to find those sheets on Ebay really cheap.  After looking a few different styles of binders, I finally picked one up.  Now I'm still waiting on my 3 pocket pages to arrive and I'm hoping once they do that I'll be happier with this system.  Right now, I am SO unorganized. I've still got coupons in my old holder (the broken ones), I've got coupons in my new binder (in regular full size page protectors).  In the last week I've had at least 2 times where I missed out on some good savings because I didn't have all my coupons with me.  Once at the grocery store because I forgot my $/$$ store coupons (that cost me $5 in savings) and then tonight at CVS because I'd only taken certain coupons with me, only to get there and find that the items I'd planned on weren't available, so I had to adjust my plan based solely on which coupons I'd brought with me.  This is frustrating!  I'll be so glad to be organized again.  Until then, I am keeping my shopping to a minimum just to avoid spending more than I absolutely have to.

CVS Trip 12/5

Taking advantage of the Schick / Playtex Spend $20 get a $10 ECB deal.  It took me a while to find the best use of my money/coupons,  as I wasn't able to do the deals I'd originally thought about - either because the store didn't have the items or I didn't have as many of the coupons as I thought I did.  So here's what I ended up scoring today:




3 Edge shave gels @$2.99
1 Schick Hydro shave gel @ $3.99
1 4ct Schick Xtreme 3 razors @ $8.79
6 Reese's Dark @ .89 (B2G1 Free)

Total $25.31

Coupons Used:
$4/20 CVS purchase
$1/1 Schick Hydro shave gel
3 .55/1 Edge shave gel
$2/1 Schick disposable razors
$15.96 ECBs (from previous trips)

Total Out of Pocket (after tax): $1.88 (.70 pre-tax).

It seems that (largely due to Black Friday) I've gotten my ECBs/RR/+UP at the drugstores built up to the point where I'm basically just recycling them on each trip, and spending very little out of pocket each time.  This is a great point to reach and it seems to me the wisest way to use them.