How to Organize Coupons with DIY Coupon Sleeves
We’ve had many people ask us how to organize coupons (especially the printable ones), so we’re going to share our favorite method. This method is nothing fancy, but it works well, it’s easy to do, and it’s super frugal as well.
It basically involves just making your own DIY coupon sleeves out of page protectors. This works well because you can just pop them into your coupon binder and it’s easy to sort through. Follow the simple steps below to make your own!
DIY Coupon Sleeves
Supplies:
- Page protector
- Sharpie marker or labels
- Ruler or measuring tape
- Sewing machine
Instructions:
Step 1. Mark your page protector
Divide your page protector into 3 equal sections and mark the sections with a marker, or fold them to create a crease. These will be your guides for sewing.
Step 2. Sew over the lines
This may seem a bit weird at first but just stick with me. You’ll see why we’re doing this soon! Here’s what it should look like after you sew:
Step 4. Cut the page protector
Just under the lines that you just sewed, cut the page protector. You’re essentially just cutting out the 3 coupon sleaves here:
Step 5. Label the pockets
Now that you’ve made your coupon pockets, you can label them for each category of coupon you need. I just used a sharpie to label mine.
Two Ways to Organize Your Coupons
Method 1. The Baseball Card Method
This is a convenient way to file them in your binder. You can just use one coupon sleeve per category and file them in your binder like so:
Method 2. The ClipLESS Method
With this method, you’ll be using each page protector for a full sheet of coupons. You’ll then sort the pages by date.
This method works well because you just clip a coupon when you need it. That way you’re not clipping coupons that you never end up using. The downside of this method is you’ll have to clip the coupons while you’re at the grocery store.
Step 1. Make a cover sheet
Your cover sheet will go at the front of your coupon binder and list all of your coupons based on the date you inserted them into the binder. You can highlight coupons that you’re interested in.
Step 2. Organize the coupons by date
Organize your sheets of coupons for each week. This makes it easy to sort through, and once they expire it’s easy to just take the sheets out and replace them with new coupons.
To learn more about the clipLESS method, check out our full post.
If you are not feeling up to making your own coupon sleeves, Avery sells this same version. You can buy them on Amazon HERE:
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At Fabulessly Frugal, our goal is to help you live HEALTHY, WEALTHY, and WISE! My team and I work hard to bring you the best, online deals, clean eating, DIY's, freezer meal recipes, and more! I LOVE coaching and inspiring people to improve their health in my fitness challenge! You should also check out my favorite cleanse! Learn more about me and the rest of my team.
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This is awesome! I now have a reason to use my sewing machine! Thanks for sharing
That’s too complicated for me. The card/comic book shop where I buy my inserts has all different sizes, these ones included. I think they’re originally meant for currency, but this size and the 6 pocket pages work perfectly for printables. It’s nice.
I honestly prefer the 6 pocket pages, because the coupons slide out of the 3 pocket pages really easily when I’m flipping through my binder. easy fix by just paper clipping them in, but eh. 🙂
When I started couponing 3 years ago, I made my page protector pockets with my sewing machine, but in a different configuration (big ppocket on the bottom, two smaller at the top). They have held up well and I love being organized in a way my mind can thrive with.
Thanks for these ideas! I think that as long as our binder works for us, each is a representation of our desire to save money for our family.
When using the clip less coupon method with online coupons, is there a way to print a list of the coupons you printed from the websites, or do I need to type my own cover sheet for each. i.e. coupons.com, red plum, etc.?
I was wondering the same thing
Not that I know of.
This was the most fantastic idea I have seen in a while for those of us without enough spare cash (being unemployed and all) to go out and buy inserts designed like this. I just have one “tried it and found this out” comment. I did this with regular thread, but my poor plastic didn’t seem to take it too well! I then used regular thread on my heavyweight pages and it was fine.
I would suggest, though, is no matter what weight plastic you’re using, that you use an elastic-type thread. I tried it and had an “aha” moment! It has more give than regular cotton thread and will allow you to be…um…less “lady-like” with your coupon retrieval, like I am with mine (yanking around in the pockets pulling out 4 or 5 of them only to shove them back in the wrong way mostly before finding the one I want!). 🙂
I folded mine in half and cut 3 slits. Then put a paper in the plastic sleeve and tape on the botton of each pocket i made instead of sewing. This also gave me 6 pockets instead of only 3.
coupontom.com if you print them through the website it will save what coupons you have printed. you can also use it on mobile so if i see a great deal i check to see what coupons i have (i use clipless method) so its very useful for me.
I am going to try my food saver to melt three seams. Will let you know if it works or if my hubs is going to kill me after work lol
So I used the food saver but I need to get thicker sleeves as mine started to melt. It is also a pain to line them up. If you want to save money and have a food saver then it is possible. I think I am going to buy the pre made ones as my ADD brain will lose interest on making them lol