Organizing (Some of) the Paper Clutter . . .

So a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I wanted to go out and have a nice dinner and did not want to spend a lot of money.  Every year at the office, my husband gets a very generous gift card to a Tampa restaurant from his boss and for the past two years, the gift cards have been to Donatello's. It's a swanky Italian restaurant where the waiters speak Italian and the bar is THE place to be seen. I go looking for the gift cards (I rearranged the laundry room cabinets where I usually keep the gift cards and of course, can't remember where I put them!) and 'lo and behold, we can't find last year's gift card, we have this year's but not 2011's. That's a lot of money down the drown! Luckily for us, the restaurant knows the boss, kind of knows my husband and so they honor the old, missing gift card!

Well, I decided enough is enough and finally sat down to organize this mess and here's what I did -

I hit up my local Staples and got my organizing on!
Now, I hate giving any more money to Martha Stewart but
I have to admit, she's got great stuff and I wanted
something that will last and will look nice so she
is my GTG (Go To Gal).

I gathered all the coupons, gift cards (I did eventually find my stash but still no Donatello's 2011) and take-out menus into one binder. This way, when we want to go out to eat, we can just look at the deals we have.

I printed out a pretty label (took freaking forever though -
and I totally blame Martha, not me!

Put the gift cards in a 4 pocket holder.

Menus went in a large single sleeve.
I put similar restaurants together.

I created a sleeve for our favorite locals, chains, pizza, Chinese, and bar-b-cue
(I do live in the south).
I also have one for any good coupons I have instead of shoving
them to the bottom of my handbag.

Now it's all there so next time we want to go out to eat or order takeout, first stop will be the beautifully organized Menus and Gift Cards binder.

Tomorrow, coat two of the project from hell (and there is 0% chance of rain and hubby will be in Atlanta so should be smooth sailing, I pray!) but that is for another post!