Back to School Shopping & Tax Free Weekends

Well, it's that time of year again. The Fall clothes and school supplies have hit the stores and school will be starting soon.

Here are some great money saving articles:

5 Ways to Get 90% OFF
Designer Kid’s Clothes.

The title says it all. A list of ways to save money on clothes. It gives a Target mark-down schedule, however I've noticed that the Targets near me all have different mark-down schedules. I still haven't been able to figure them out exactly. I do know that the Target closest to me marks things down earlier than the others.

School Supplies - Deals Week Ending 8/2/2008

An excellent list of current school supply deals! My daughter is only 4, so I don't have to worry about back to school supplies, but I've had a great time picking up freebies and almost freebie supplies!

2008 Tax Free Holidays

From the same blog above! A list of participating Tax Free Weekend states and information.

Coupon Organizing

The most important aspect of clipping coupons is...

ORGANIZING!

It took me awhile to find what works best for me, but this is what I've come up with.

The binder is a Mead Five Star Flex binder. These are available in several colors.

The binder came with tabbed dividers.

The first page of my coupon organizer, is one of the tabbed dividers. It has a pocket, which is currently holding store coupons. I also store my paper clips, index cards and current shopping lists on the first page.

The following pages are 9 slot baseball card holders. These can be found at Walmart and are usually sold in a package of 10 sheets. Each sheet has room for 18 coupons, front and back.

I have 4 sections:

• Baby Products
• Health/Beauty
• Household Supplies
• Grocery

Next, I have a pencil pouch. This holds:

• Receipts
• Scissors
• Calculator
• Pen

The last section of the binder is a calendar. I found this monthly calendar in the day planner section. It was a package refill for large planners. It has a tab for each month from July of 2008 to December of 2009.

The best way to find what works for you is sometimes trial and error. The accordion coupon organizers did not work for me. I couldn't see the coupons, so I forgot about them.

Please post to the comments, if you have a system you'd like to share!