Coupon Binder

A couple months ago I participated in the challenge at A Bowl Full of Lemons about creating a coupon binder. You can see that post here. At the time I was not able to complete it. I have been working on it for the past couple weeks and am finally finished. I probably shouldn't say finished because I know it is a work in progress. I'm sure there are some things I will need to adjust but for now this is it.


At the end of the challenge I knew I wanted to change my divider categories. I only had five or six. I never did like the categories. I realized I only used those because they were the ones I used in my old coupon organizer. It was one of those about the size & shape of an envelope. When I used that it only had five or six sections so I had to come up with categories that would include everything I would have a coupon for.

I bought these dividers during back to school last year. They were supposed to be erasable. When I wrote on them you couldn't hardly see what I wrote. Plus, I never needed to erase. They had to go.I found these cute pink ones. My favorite color is pink. I saw these a while back but didn't need dividers at the time. When I realized I needed dividers I went ahead and got the pink.

I used my label maker to print out labels and put them on the dividers.Unfortunately, when I put the dividers in the binder you couldn't see the labels past the page protectors and baseball card sheets.I liked the pink dividers so much I considered keeping them anyway, especially since I spent all that time making and placing the labels.

Then I realized how silly that was and headed to Office Depot.

Despite the fact that the Office Depot employee told me he didn't believe they carried any dividers that were specifically made to be extra-wide, I found these. This time before I put the labels on I put the dividers in the binder to see how they would work.Awesome, they will work.

I took the labels off the pink dividers and was able to place them on the new dividers.I love it.

And, they are longer than the plastic pages. Woo hoo.I added something that I hope will help me keep my coupons within categories even more organized. For categories that include several sub-categories I want to keep like coupons with like coupons. For example, within Toiletries I want to keep the toothbrushes and toothpastes together and  make up coupons together, etc. I made a label to stick on the actual plastic page. At first, I thought that might be a little much. For that reason I have not done this through the entire binder. I'll try it with these first and if I like it I will add more.

When deciding which categories to use I first checked Krazy Coupon Lady's suggestions. They didn't quite work for me. I looked at what my categories used to be and what coupons I collect most and created categories based on those things.

My categories are:
baking
bread
snacks
breakfast
lunch/dinner
sides
fridge
frozen
cans & jars
cleaning
paper products
meds
toiletries
Target
misc.

I know I have some that may overlap. We'll see how it works.

One thing Krazy Coupon Lady did that I want to eventually add is a table of contents that lists the categories (see here.) Actually, I might do mine a little differently. Her table of contents simply states the categories and then she has a page for the front of each section that explains what is in that section. I might combine the two in the table of contents. We'll see. I don't see that happening any time soon because I want to get started on my next project...

A price book. I have a price book but it needs to be updated and changed around. I want to have my price book because I need to know when a deal is really a good deal. For example, if I hear about a deal at Walgreens I need to know what that product would cost at Target, CVS, Walmart, and my local grocery stores. Plus, I could track sales cycles. (Who am I trying to kid, I don't see that part happening, but it could.)

I am linking up to Works for Me Wednesday, Org. Junkie's 52 Weeks,  A Bowl Full of Lemon's One Project at a Time, Organize with Sandy's Organizing Mission Monday, and Frugal Friday at Marsha's spot.

Rearranging my cabinets

Yesterday, I was baking my son's birthday cake for his party (which was today) so I needed to find ingredients that I don't use very often. That required me to get into an awkward cabinet. It is a cabinet in the corner of the kitchen, but it's not what I consider a corner cabinet. It's door isn't angled. Instead, the cabinet is super deep. It is very hard to get to anything at the back of the cabinet. I'd heard the tip about using a lazy susan in cabinets and gave it a try. It has worked out very well.

Here is what I saw when I opened the cabinet yesterday.Having the lazy susan in the cabinet allows me to see what is in the back without having to take a bunch of stuff out. I don't remember what I was looking for, but I was looking a little more thoroughly than I normally do. (The stuff I use most often is the closest to the door.) I looked a little more closely and this is what I saw:(I had to use the flash to really show what was in there.) If you look closely you can see the top of a box in the very back. That box is not on the lazy susan so I did not know what it was. I pulled everything out and this is what I found:I must have bought the powdered milk for a recipe--which I must not have ever made because the box was unopened. The jar is marked for making your own salad dressing, which I have never done. I would never have looked for the powdered milk back there. So, if I needed it for another recipe, I would have bought more. I would have looked there for the jar but we received it as a wedding or shower gift (11 years ago) and have never used it so I probably would have never even looked for it.

When I put the stuff back there I guess I thought it was the best use of space because it is stuff I hardly ever (or never) use. Now I see that I might as well say good-bye to anything I put behind the lazy susan because I won't see it for a long while. I decided to make a small change to see if I could make it work a little better.

Here is what I did:It is a very small change. I pushed the lazy susan back farther and brought the powdered milk up front.

The lazy susan turned just fine and I was still able to get what I needed off of it so I decided to check the top shelf.

Here is what I saw:Looks pretty good. The lazy susan works great up here.

Here is what I couldn't see:These items were behind the lazy susan. The oil and vinegar thing is another wedding/shower gift that has never been used. I have no idea why the matches were back there. My husband was looking for matches last fall when he was having issues with the grill and we couldn't find any (because I hid them.) Obviously not a good place for them because I would never (and didn't) look back there for them. The box contains cupcake liners, decorative icing, and Wilton icing color. Guess what I bought yesterday morning before I baked the cake?Wilton black icing color. (It worked out because I ended up using what I already had in addition to what I bought, but still.)

So, I moved that lazy susan back also.Not much of a difference as far as how the lazy susan works, but a big difference as far as how effectively the space gets used.

Now that I am looking at the pictures I am not so sure I am going to like having to reach inside the cabinet to get to the items on the lazy susans. I know I tested them yesterday but we will see if I still like it when I am actually in the middle of cooking. Even if I don't like them so far back and decide to move them toward the front, I am still better off not having anything behind them.

I'm linking up to Works for Me Wednesday and Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing (for both the using of the lazy susans as well as moving them so far back in this corner.)