Today's Challenge: Coupon De-clutter

We know the task of clipping and sorting coupons can be overwhelming, so we want to take this one step at a time!

Today we are going to remove all
EXPIRED COUPONS
ONLY
from our binders, folder, envelopes, whatever your system is!

That's it! This is all we're going to do with our coupons today! This should just take you a few minutes and you're off to your next family project.

In the spirit of giving back, we encourage you to sort your coupons as you go into two piles

1) Food (this not include pet food)
2) Non-Food (put everything we as humans cannot/should not consume here)

Ask your local friends to do the same.

Everyone pitch in to a flat-rate USPS box and send these off to military families overseas.

New to sending q's to troops?
Visit our Support Our Troops page or the Overseas Coupon Program site

Today's Challenge: Pantry Pickup

Let's take a few minutes to get our stockpiles picked up!

Take a look at your goodies.

• Have products that you may have gone overboard on? Let's purge a little... make a donation pile.
• Check expiration dates... pull out "expireds" for one pile and "close to expiring" in another
• Do you need to restock the bathroom, kitchen, tissue boxes? Make sure there are plenty of shampoo, soap, cleaners, paper goods where they are handy when needed.

Now, organize your pile. Make sure to use FIFO system so you have your quickest expiring items in front and longest shelf life in back.

Since often we re-package food after purchase you should check out a helpful shelf-life guide to make sure you are keeping with the healthiest and best quality foods in your stockpile - I found these helpful:

Urban Survival Guide
Scribd <---- Thorough
UNL Food Safety <----- Easy to follow and printable guide

Now that you are organized, what do you do with the product you've purged?

• We at Poor House Princess encourage you to donate as much as possible. Find a local food bank or church pantry. Many will only accept NON-EXPIRED items. HOWEVER, our local food bank will set expired items out while informing individuals they are expireds. Those persons then can choose for themselves if they would like the items.
• Many expireds are NOT harmful. The expiration date indicates when the products are at their best for use. Check out the guides above to see which items can be used after the printed expiration date.