More coupon organization

This task is getting longer and harder. I'm trying to place roughly 800 coupons into a new system, going from a plastic storage tote with item categories (frozen veggies, diapers/wipes, deodorant, etc.) to a plastic binder with each coupon categorized alphabetically by brand name.



After several days of this, I am not even at the half-way point. It has been productive in a few ways, though: I am forced to weed out coupons for items that I most likely would never buy, coupons that expired more than a year ago, and decide exactly how many copies of any one coupon I need based on how many of that item I would actually purchase at a time. Ten cans of soup? Yes, I can handle that. Ten bottles of cold medicine? I don't think we'll be needing that much, but thanks anyway.


Besides weeding out old/pointless coupons, this exercise is forcing me to examine slightly larger issues:


How long should I keep coupons? What coupons should be clipped in the first place? How much of something would I need? How long will it last or keep? How often does that product go on sale? Would I buy the product if it weren't on sale?

Tomorrow: the conclusion to this coupon mess.