Saturday, June 13, 2009

Coupons 101: Keeping track of it all-coupons

So I hope you are all enjoying the world of coupons so far. Are you keeping track of how much you are saving? You should! It is so fun to watch how much you save go up and up as you coupon more. When I first started I saved about 34%, but now I regularly save 50-60%(or more) every time I shop. How do I keep track of this? My husband helped me create some great forms in excel and I am going to share them with you. This lesson I will share my coupon sorter. In my next lesson I will share my budget/coupon savings sheet.

My Coupon Sorter
To understand how to use this sorter, watch the video on this lesson here.
  • #-the acutal number I put on the coupon
  • Product-what the coupon is, I like to put the product name and then what it is specifically, example Colgate-toothbrush or I might have Colgate-toothpaste
  • Expiration Date-date coupon expires
  • Amount-if it is off 1 item, I just put the amount, off of two, I put .50/2 for example
  • No Doubling-I just make a x in this column if it says do not double
  • Store-I write the name of the store in this column if it is a store specific coupon, like Target
  • Quantity-how many I have of that EXACT coupon
I love this sorter because of all the great features my husband put in. If you click on any of the arrows at the top of the column, example shown below, you can sort your entire chart how you would like.
Here is the window that pops up if you pick Custom Filter from the arrow. I then pick the less than or equal to and put in a date, this time 5/31/9. After saying OK; my spreadsheet will then show me all of the coupons that expire on or before 5/31. I can then take them out of my coupon box and after I am done with that, I then delete those entries from my spread sheet.

This sorting is also great with the product, as a pull down list will appear so I can show just my coupons that have the word Pillsbury for example.

You can also do multiple filters at a time, I could pick a expiration date filter and then pick a certain product. If you have questions about how to use this please leave a comment and I will do my best to help you out.

If you would like this sheet you can download it here.

All of the extras are set up, all you have to do is start entering your coupons and enjoy!

6 comments:

  1. That's amazing! Will you just do it all for me? I am always amazed and awed by people that do so well at this so Bravo to you!! I'm gonna have to check out your other lessons, too.

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  2. Mindij- yes check out the other lessons and I promise you can do it to! I just started about two years ago, and I did not want to do it at first as I thought, no way is this going to save me money... but man I was wrong and love it now!

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  3. See this is the part that I get discouraged! I just need to do it! Thanks so much!

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  4. How nice of you to provide that for us after all your hard work. I was actually working on making one.... got frustrated/interrupted too many times and stopped! So THANK YOU a million times for this!

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  5. This really is great Emmy! Just an FYI, when I downloaded your form, the filters looked nothing like your picture. They were all drop down menus that said: (All), (Top 10), (Blanks), (Non Blanks) and then whatever I entered in that column. We must have different versions of excel or something?? My husband should be able to format the filters for me without a problem, I just thought you might want to know :)

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  6. LOL - sorry I figured it out! I should play around with things a little more before I comment :P

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