Adventures in Couponing

So I've neglected this blog for awhile. Not because I've wanted to, but because things, as usual, have been all-out crazy in my house. I'm combining my loves in life: being my own boss and teaching children. And I'm opening an in-home preschool (to which I have ANOTHER blog dedicated! ;-))
But in the midst of all of this, I have also re-organized our financial goals (If you saw how much it cost to start a preschool, you'd understand why my new business venture and saving money go hand-in-hand :)).
The fact is tha we have about $10,000 in debt to knock out (give or take :-P) And as I've talked about before, I'd like to knock that debt out, as well as have a savings fund, down payment, and emergency fund before we buy a house.
So goal #1... Knock out the debt! I will open my preschool this summer and I also have a Mary Kay business... but if you JUST count my husband's income, we're spending about as much as we're earning right now. Not good.
So one way I'm going to make cuts so that we can roll more into debt payoff is by cutting our grocery bill.
I currently shop for 4 adults, 1 child, and 6 large animals. :-P I easily spend $100 a week in groceries, totaling anywhere from $400-$600 or more a month in groceries.
My goal? To get that down to $100 a month. You heard me right. $100 a month. Are you going to see me on Extreme Couponing? Not likely. But there are so many resources available these days to save money on... and this is one area of our budget where I CAN save money (as opposed to bills or gas or the tolls my husband pays to drive to and from work every day :-P). So I think it's a great place to start.

Here's how I'm starting:
I have a couple weeks worth of coupons saved. So I started cutting. All of them. Not just the ones I thought I'd use. The only exceptions were things I know I will NEVER use (think denture products and things like that) and cosmetics and skincare. Everything else is fair game.
So I cut. And I made piles. Each pile was a category. Like:
Frozen Foods
Body Care
Hair Care
Veggies
Kid Products
Cleaning Products
Medicines
Fruit
Laundry Products
Cooking
Oral Care
Razors
and so on....
Then when I was done cutting, I "labeled" each pile with the category.
When these (and this week's) are all organized, I plan on going out and getting baseball sleeves to organize them in. I feel like it's too much trouble to try and dig through them in a filing system; plus, I often miss some and then the time I put into make sure I had them before I left is wasted :-P
Here is where we're at so far: