RECEIPT ORGANIZATION: DIY POCKET FOLDERS

Do you drown in paper clutter in your house?  I know I sure do and every time I try to conquer it, there is another pile building some where.  One of my biggest culprits is my receipts.  I have never been an organizer of them prior to marrying my husband but over the years he has wanted me to try. He organizes his.  It’s his way of memory keeping.  If I ask him what we did on our first date 13 years ago he will go where he organizes his receipts find the month then receipt and be able to tell me exactly what we did.  This is not a skill I have mastered, yet.

My first problem arises after I have purchased something and they hand me the receipt it gets shoved into the black hole that is my purse.  And there it stays until I do a massive clean out which usually results in crumbled receipts being pulled out of the black hole only to find a new home gathering dust on my desk until I then hand them over to my husband or find something to put them in. 

DIY Pocket Folders for Your traveler's notebook to help organize receipts

I have tried different systems over the years.  I have actually tried.  First, I tried one of those expandable file folders from the dollar store as seen below.  Over the course of the year, although I was able to separate them into monthly categories, there were 2 key things that did not help me.

  1. I didn’t keep this in my purse so I still was dumping my receipts on to my desk and then at a later point (usually months later) filing them away.
  2. Where do I store this huge (in my opinion) expandable file folder.  Year after year of this.  I just couldn’t see myself doing it.

receipt organization

This past year I started with this more paper notebook style organizer.  It was actually called a spiral bill organizer but I thought I would use it to keep all my receipts.  You will see me discuss it in my video.

diy-pocket-folder-7

  1. Again I couldn’t carry it around in my purse so still had the problem of pile on my desk.
  2. The pockets were attached to the spirals & so started to tear & also was becoming big and bulky.  But it would have been easier to store away.

I decided none of these were working for me and so I’m going to try a new system.

This is my traveler’s fauxdori notebook that I have been only using for about 5 months now but already it is the home to so many things and now it will be home to a pocket folder made to hold my receipts.

my traveler's notebook

Here is the December folder I created to prepare for next month.  November and December might need bigger pockets as there are still a lot of Christmas presents to purchase.  And if anything needs to be returned well another reason for me to be organized.

diy pocket folder for your traveler's notebook

It is super simple and easy.  You will just have to determine what size will work best for you.  My traveler’s fauxdori is a A5 size so I didn’t need to measure or cut too much with the sheet of paper I choose.  Here we go:

SUPPLIES:

  • Extra scrapbook paper  – I decided to use the papers from The Planner Society Kit Subscription box that I have been getting for the last 4 months.  I hadn’t done anything yet with the papers.
  • Good washi tape or really good glue tape (whichever you prefer)
  • Scissors or paper cutter
  • pencil and ruler for measuring
  • bone folder

That is pretty much it.  Here is how I made my folders:

The Planner Society kit papers are a standard 8.5 x 11 inches so I just folded the papers in half.  I did need to trim about an 1 inch or so off the top to fit it nicely in this journal I have in my traveler’s notebook.

Here it is folded in half

diy pocket folder for your traveler's notebook

Next I cut a triangular piece off the front to create the pocket for the folder. I just eyeballed mine but you can measure as well.

DIY pocket folder for your traveler's notebook

In my video you will see me use a glue tape runner but after finishing the video the glue tape I used just wasn’t holding so I used washi tape instead to hold the 2 edges of the folder.  Not all washi tape is created equal so you will have to know which ones in your craft stash would work the best.

DIY pocket folders for your traveler's notebook

Next I added a cute little label to indicate the month.

DIY pocket folders for your traveler's notebook

 

DIY pocket folders to organize receipts

Here is a video of how I made them as well.

I will update in the new year how my new system is working out for me.  How do you organize your receipts?  Do you have a system that works?  I would love to hear about what works for you.

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Cheers,

Bonnie in Gold glitter

Bonnie Dani

Educator, Writer, Blogger, Mom

Contact Me: [email protected]