2012 Couponing Resolutions Reviewed

Back in January of 2012 I created a lot of different goals. Some I achieved and some I didn’t. One list of goals I made were 7 Couponing Resolutions. Here is the outcome of the goals. I actually am really proud and did REALLY good!

1. Waiting before telling people you coupon.– Yeah I basically do this. I really only talk about couponing if it comes up in conversation.

2. DO NOT CLEAR THE SHELVES – I’m really good about doing this. The only time I DON’T do this is if there are only 1-4 items left. And if I am at a grocery store I just get a raincheck. Sometimes if it’s something I REALLY want at a Drug Store I will try another one since there are 3-4 WAGS and CVS’ in a 10 mile radius to me. Or sometimes if I go later in the week they will get a new shipment of items.

3. Be a Coupon Fairy – I do this ALL THE TIME!! Sometimes I have 4 coupons and only need 2 of an item or the coupon is for the bigger size not on sale I will leave the coupon near the item. It’s fun to do this and then I don’t have to worry about refiling the coupon.

4. Organize Coupons by TUESDAY – Uh yeah I did okay on this task. Some weeks are better than others. I had an AWFUL stunt in March when we moved and then again over the summer where I didn’t organize for a week and then over the summer and I lost a TON of coupon inserts and as I type this I have 2 weeks of inserts to file. Rome wasn’t built in a day. I did buy an awesome table to organize my coupons on though!

5. Don’t buy a TON of a new item b/c it is cheap or free – I did really good at this one and I can say we haven’t bought anything gross in a long time! We did get carried away and bought WAY too much salad dressing and cereal at one point and a bunch of it ended up going bad before we were able to use it. But other than that we’re doing good on this resolution.

6. Donate any FREE items you don’t need/like (see 5) – I haven’t done as much of this as I would have liked as our financial situation hasn’t been that great but I did donate a ton of stuff to a group that was collecting items for Hurricane Sandy last fall and I bought a ton of cheap boardgames at Christmas and donated them to Toys for Tots and I started donating to the Church. I have to take small steps.

7. Find a better system for printable/blinkies/peelies/loose coupons – Uh yeah this is another work in progress. I’ve tried about 10 different systems this year from a file folder by category, by abc order, to putting them in a binder by category. We’re currently putting them by abc order in a file folder but I’m at a point where we NEVER look at them and it’s a waste of time and energy and we may end up just throwing them away immediately or just sticking them all in one space uncategorized.