Saturday, September 10, 2011

Coupon Binder on the Cheap!

YI've been wanting a coupon binder ever since I've seen them all over Facebook and I've been trying to win one loaded with coupons to no avail.
Sooo...being the sewer and crafter that I am, I have made my own from things I already had in my house!
You heard me right....No Cost!

I had recently cleaned out my sewing room and gave away many of my quilting magazines that I kept neatly in binders.  I had at least 4-5 3" binders left over by the time I was through clearing out the magazines I didn't need anymore.
I combined those with a few items below that I already had in around my house

3 ring 3" binder
Cardstock and page protectors


Sewing machine
Ruler, marker and scissors




















I had looked at the store for the inserts that are usually used to make a coupon binder, but I didn't like what I saw and how much they cost.  I could have ordered some online, but that would take time and too much money.

So I made some up to match the coupon sizes that I needed.  I placed a piece of cardstock into a page protector, made sure it was all the way to the bottom in and all the way to the left side.  Then I started measuring and marking my sew and cut lines.

Sew along both sides of paper

Sew on solid lines, cut on dotted only through the plastic
Remove the cut part between the dotted lines
Make sure to cut out parts on both sides of the pages












































You can see I've made pages for all different size coupons!














Next I taped some index tabs (that I have had sitting in a drawer for at least 5 years) to the pages to label the sections accordingly:

Clothing, Restaurant, Goodwill and Reward coupons
Fry's store coupons, food, cleaning, health and beauty
Walgreens coupons
Then manufacturers coupons:
Drinks
Breakfast
Diary
Refrigerated
Frozen
Snacks
Pantry
Paper Products/storage
Dishwashing
Laundry
Cleaners
Health and Beauty
Dental and first-aid


Here are some of my finished pages!





I also printed out some helpful Grocery lists to put in the clear front cover of my binder.



Courtesy of 

I have also made a Master Grocery List of all the products I use in my house.
You can view it here:


I use this list to mark coupons I am in need of.
I update it and post it weekly on Facebook and on coupon trading pages like


It is wonderful to have a place to swap coupons I don't need, for coupons I really want.

I also send out expired coupons to 


Let me know what you think or leave me any question you have about making your own!

Ellie

P.S.

If I get enough comments on this post...
I think I will make one for a lucky reader!!!
Spread the LOVE!



2 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great idea!! Thanks for stopping by from the friday hop!

Unknown said...

What a great idea and probably much cheaper than the card sleeves that my daughter used.

BTW, I am coming over from meyouhealth.com (Tammy Graham)