My Madness...

I thought I would share what my dining room table looks like while I try to figure out my personal deals for the week but also what it may look like when figuring out the weekly flyers for you. I call this my madness. Or as my husband calls it my chaos. I am normally a very organized person but when it comes to bargain hunting everything is fair game.

I have my stacks of weekly coupons with each date labeled with a Sharpie on the front so I don’t have to look at the teeny tiny font on the side of the flyer each time I’m looking for a certain date. I also have them stacked in order with newest on top and all the same together (5/1 SS, 5/1 RP, etc).

Back in the day when I first started Bargain Hunting (2007) I used to cut the coupons out every week and put them in my binder. However since I became a “victim” of the corporate downsizing in February 2011 I haven’t been cutting them. Instead I stack and label them and use two coupon databases online to help me search for the coupons I need. Now this CAN hinder a great deal on the fly, but at some point I just decided I would write down any deals I see and come back later. If they are there, great! If not, it wasn’t meant to be. It’s just so time consuming now to clip coupons and run the blog so I just wait LOL.

You will see my binder which has plastic inserts for holding baseball cards. These are perfect for storing clipped coupons. Inside the binder I also have two pencil cases; one for all my Target coupons and one for storing misc coupons that I haven’t sorted yet. Eventually, since I am not clipping my Sunday inserts I will use the binder for all my printable coupons from the Internet. But as you can see I also have a stack of those waiting to be clipped. Sigh…

I also have envelopes for each store that I visit (Shaw’s, Market Basket, Walgreens, CVS, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.) along with a pad of paper and pen. This is my “shopping list” that I prepare before I step out the door. I search the flyers for the weekly deals and other blogs to see if there is anything I am missing then search the coupon databases to match coupons. I put each store’s stack of coupons in an envelope with the list and that is all I should get when I go to the store. Every now and then I do get more then I wrote down but I’m really trying to stick with the list for my budget.

So this is my madness…what I do when I’m search for you or myself. I have my computer powered up and ready to help me work the deals and also tell you about what you can find at the stores. Only thing missing from the picture is my big cup of coffee every morning. And yes I DID get the coffee at a great price too!