Couponing my way to organized

My mom has been sending me coupons for months. Envelopes stuffed to the brim. Coupons for everything from canned soups to panty liners. And while I appreciated her effort at the time, I did not understand why couponing was such a big deal. At that time, I use to make my grocery list and thumb through the coupons and pick out coupons for what I had on my list. Other times, I would take my coupons to the store and thumb through it on occasion while walking past items I thought I "might" have a coupon for in my organizer. Saving me .50¢, or $1.00 here and there, but nothing to write home about and nothing that really made a dent in my ever increasing grocery bill.


I heard about people using coupons and spending mere pennies for hundred dollar grocery bills, but I could not seem to make it work for me and I couldn't figure out how to properly organize my coupons. So I gave up. Yes, gave up in frustration. My coupons sat for two or three months collecting dust on my bookshelf. Then something happened; I gave birth to my youngest child. It struck me that as a single mother to two children with a dwindling balance in my bank account, I was going to have to find a way to stretch my already tight budget even further. Thank you FMLA for 12 weeks off to be with my newborn, but 6 weeks of paid maternity leave would have been better!!

So I set off to find out the keys to making couponing work. I searched the latest blogs and the hottest coupon websites to find out how the "pros" made it work for their families. Little did I know what I was in for! There is so much information out there that it is information overload in the beginning. But I persevered and now feel more confident in my couponing abilities.

I finally have a VERY organized coupon book that makes sense to me. What works for one person may not work for another. Finding a system that works for you is key!

This super organization has transferred into other areas of my life. I was never overly organized and when my first child came along, all organization went out the window. It was all about learning how to be a mom and make it through the sleepless days and nights. When I finally felt like I was able to organize my home and life, I found out I was expecting child number two. Between taking care of my firstborn, being a single mom, and pregnant, organization was optional. My house was clean and safe, just not well organized. I could not find anything! Nothing had a permanent "home"; it kept being put away where there was room and I could never remember where I put "it". After my second child was born, my mom came to help me with adjusting to having two children. She is a super organizer and set about to better organize my home. Although to some this might be annoying, to me, after just giving birth and trying to keep up with my two-year-old, she was a God send!

She has returned to her home and my house is still organized. Not %100 the way she left it, because I have gone through and reorganized somethings to where it makes sense to me. Figuring out how to organize my coupons has, in some weird way, helped me feel better and good about my organizational skills and it helped encourage me to have the rest of my life more organized. Maybe it is the instant gratification of being able to go to my coupon book and find exactly what I am looking for and knowing that I have the same ability in the other areas of my life and home.