Small Folder Method

• 1). Purchase a small accordion folder or a plastic recipe box or note card organizer with divider tabs. This method takes a medium amount of time to file and find coupons.
  
  
• 2). Label the tabs with the major categories your coupons fall into. These could include canned, refrigerated, breakfast, frozen, beverages, snacks, other foods, baby items, personal care, cleaning supplies, medicine, other household, restaurants and any other categories that seem relevant for you.
  
  
• 3). Put each coupon behind the relevant category tab. Within each tab, you can either organize by expiration date or just leave them in random order.
  
  

Binder Method

• 1). Purchase a three-ring binder and a few sets of dividers. This method takes the longest to file, but you will find coupons fastest.
  
  
• 2). Label the dividers with the categories you think your coupons fall into. You can make as many categories as you have dividers for. Options include categories mentioned earlier in this article, plus more specific categories, such as frozen dinners, frozen vegetables, produce, pasta, meal kits, meat, hair, shaving, body, fine dining and casual dining.
  
  
• 3). Place at least one plastic baseball card organizing sheet behind each divider.
  
  
• 4). Place each coupon in a separate slot in the baseball card organizer in the relevant category. If you have identical coupons, file them together to save space. If a coupon is too big, fold it so it fits.
  
  

Whole Insert Method

• 1). Purchase a large accordion file. Alternately, you could use an area in your household filing system and individual file folders. You need about a dozen slots in your file or a dozen folders. Using this method means it will take hardly any time to file coupons, but finding them will take the longest.
  
  
• 2). Place all of the coupon inserts you got in the newspaper one week into the same pocket in the accordion file or into the same file folder. Label the tab with the date or put a sheet of paper in the pocket with the date written on it.
  
  
• 3). File whole coupon inserts from the next week into the following pocket or folder. When you run out of pockets or folders, go back to the beginning and throw away the coupon inserts in that pocket, which are all expired by now.
  
  
• 4). Label the last folder or pocket with "Loose Coupons." Put any coupons that you get in the mail or in the store in this pocket.
  
  
• 5). Use a coupon website that has a coupon database to look up which insert has the coupon you want. At these sites, you can also look up coupon matches from your grocery store to get a list of where to find coupons for the items on sale in your store this week.
  
  
• 6). Clip only the coupons you need that week from each insert and return the insert to its slot when you are done.