Organize Your Coupons With Google Drive

I am an organizational wanna-be. I love the concept of neatly lined cupboard shelves, filing cabinets  with sorted documents, and crafting drawers where needed items can actually be found. My reality, though, is not anywhere near these lofty goals. But...I never give up on my dream. Every few months, I get the bug to overhaul my piles of bills, throw out the outdated canned goods, and at least glance at my crafting drawers.

Today, the bug hit again. I realized I wanted to do some couponing, but I haven't looked at my coupon binder in forever. I prefer keeping all my coupons intact in the inserts they came in, but even the thought of organizing all those coupons just seemed too much. Then a brilliant idea came to me. (At least it seemed brilliant to me) What would happen if I organized all my coupons in a spreadsheet? Could I avoid having to clip all my coupons, sort them, and then check all the dates? How could I keep track of the coupons I used versus what was still in my binder? Would all this be any easier or just more work? Uggh.

I'm happy to say that I found the perfect solution in Google Drive. Google Drive is free to use with a Google account and you can access your documents anywhere. They even have a FREE app that you can download here. Here's the scoop:

1. Spreadsheet: I created a simple spreadsheet using the online spreadsheet creator in Google Drive. (see pic above) My spreadsheet is very, very simple. I have one column for the title, type, and exp. date of each coupon. The next column is the date of the insert. The last column contains the type of insert (i.e. RP=Red Plum, SS= Smart Source, etc)

2. Filling it in: I seriously do not want to spend hours and hours typing in coupons. I cut down the time it takes to fill out this spreadsheet by simply copy and pasting information  from the Sunday Coupon Preview website. I highlight the whole row of coupons listed for each insert and then just click on the "cell" where I want the information to be inserted into my spreadsheet, hit "ctrl + v" and voile! I now have a list of all the coupons for that weeks (RP, SS, P&G) insert in my first row. (**HINT** I found if I widened the first row this worked a lot better) All I have to do from there is type in the date of the insert, type the insert name, and delete from the list any coupons that were not included in my local insert.

3. Deleting Used Coupons: There are a few different methods I plan on using to keep this list up to date. I can either write down on a piece of paper the coupons I used and then delete them at a later date when I am at my computer or I can use the Google Drive App. The Google Drive App lets me access my documents from my smartphone. I can simply delete the coupons that I plan to use while I am in the checkstand! Easy peasy.

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