Walgreens trip and a coupon organizing idea

  

I finally made it to the stores today and found some great deals.  I had to make a quick trip to Walgreens before going grocery shopping because I found some great deal scenerios on some blogs this week. (Tip--I take notes throughout the week so I don't forget where the deals are when I am ready to shop over the weekend.)

Neutrogena Intensive Moisture Body Treatment Lotion--$6.00 on clearance--used a $1/1 MC...$5.00 (this is a great value for this lotion...I haven't found lotion that beats it and it's definitely not a cheaply priced product)

John Frieda Frizz-Ease Smooth Start Condition--$6.79--used a $3/1 MC and stacked it with a $2/1 Walgreen's coupon from their coupon book at the front of the store...$1.79 (again, this is a great deal for a great product)

Bonnybell Lip Gloss--$0.95 on clearance--used a $1/1 coupon printed out here....FREE plus $.05 overage (my Walgreens had a lot of Bonnybell Lip Smackers in their clearance section--thanks Thankfully Thrifty for this idea)

$0.50 shipping envelope on clearance...handy to have around...going into my stockpile for future use

Total before coupons--$14.24

Total after coupons--$8.09

(before tax that's a 50% savings for today...whoo hoo)

And about that coupon organizing idea....

I used to just buy items at the store when I needed them thinking this would save me the most money.  Now I have learned the importance of buying things in advance if I know I will use them and there is a great deal on them.  Now i'm really serious about shopping for items when they are on sale and racking up any and all freebies I can that we will use in the future or I can donate.  Because of this, I have gotten a little overwhelmed on keeping my coupons organized.  I keep the main coupons I will for sure use because they are items I buy anyway in my coupon album (made from the picture album).  I keep this in my purse and always have it ready to use.  You can get this idea on my post here.  But when I find deals and scenerios on blogs, a lot of times they refer to a specific group of coupons from the Sunday newspaper by the date they came out.  So I decided to do my own little system to organize the coupons I will return to as I find deals and scenerios online.

I put each stack of coupons I have from the past two Sundays in March, and then all of February's coupons combined (because I wasn't quite on top of things last month) into separate file folders and labeled the file folders with the date the coupons came out.  Now when I read a deal or scenerio that refers to a specific date...I can quickly find the stack of coupons to search.  I will of course toss the stacks as they expire and then refill the files with different stacks.  I just used a letter organizer we already have on our desk to place the file folders upright and easy to access.

Hope it helps!