Keeping your coupons while keeping your sanity

I guess I could have also called this article How Not to  keep your coupons, Which is what I seem to be much better at than being neat and tidy.    For those of you who don't know me I am good at getting things done, just not always as neatly as others.  
     I have tried several ways to cut, store and utilize my coupons.  Here are my attempts and a few and pro's and con's.  The great thing about this is that there is no one to grade you or tell you that you are wrong, just try it and if it is not for you try a different approach.

Cut them and keep them in a shoe box.
This was probably my first attempt at keeping coupons and it works fine.  The shoe box fits neatly in the seat of the shopping cart and you can keep your coupons in between index cards with tabs on them.    I am klutzy and would drop my box occasionally so I would then have to resort them. 
You can sort them in several different ways, by aisle type, by brands or even by dates of expiration.

Do Not cut them and use a file box 
This is great for those that stick to a strict list when shopping.  Keep your coupons in the circular, write on the front in large numbers the date of that circular.  Then use the matching tools at your favorite site. IE : couponmom.com, allyou.com etc.   After you have matched them and made your list, cut your coupons out and place them in a scrap envelope with your list on the outside of the envelope.   This is also good to get rid of those envelopes you get in the mail and usually just throw away.  Recycle. 
These circulars can be stored by date in a file box such as this one

This worked great for me until I had coupons I did not use.   I could not figure out what to do with the cut coupons.   I also found things on sale that were not advertised or were manager specials and my coupons were at home!!   Quite irritating.  

Cut them and place them in a binder
I get several papers so instead of cutting each coupon out individually I place the pages together and cut out several at once.   Take your circular and place them out one page at a time.  Do this for all the same circulars.  

I like to have my binder right there with me so I just place them into the slots as soon as one page is done.  I find this is neater and I just take my binder with me to the store.  
I still match and make a list and place those coupons in one of the pockets of the binder.  

I have tabs on the pages  and place food items in the front and non-edibles in the back half.