Today, I put together my travel coupon storage for grocery items. Taking a bit of inspiration from a coupon collecting cashier at London Drugs, I decided a little while ago that I wanted to use a bargain photo album for my coupon storage, and I found this one at a thrift shop for $1.99.
If I feel creative one day, I may upcycle it to say, 'Coupons' or some such, but so far, it works for me. I keep only the coupons that I think I would really use, if I came across that item on sale, and we weren't already stocked up at home. Though it is close to full now (80%, I would say), several of the coupons I have now will expire at the end of this month, making room for new ones. I write the expiry on the coupon, since it seems to always be written somewhere different, and this way I can see at glance if the coupon is still good, or not.
I have a loose organization system where food coupons are followed by other consumable items in basic categories like pharmacy, cleaners, and paper products.
Because of the way the album is constructed, there are larger pockets in the front and the back. In the front, I have slipped in my regular price comparison chart, with the regular prices of common grocery items from Walmart and Costco. I use this to help me decide if a sale in a store is worth taking advantage of, or not.
In the back, I keep restaurant coupons. I know I won't generally use the restaurant coupons when I am shopping, but because this coupon album will live in my purse, it is nice to keep the restaurant coupons there, too. You never know when circumstances will lead to an unplanned meal out, or picking up take out, and by having the coupons on hand we can still take advantage of whatever deals have come our way.
Just one more strategy to stretch the budget. Since Food and Consumables make up over 65% of our variable expenses in our budget, there is quite a lot of motivation to see how low we can go. :-)
