Well, I finally did it:  Admitted in my heart of hearts that Dominicks was as dead to me as their coupon policy.  In other words, since 3/31 was the deadline Western Springs set for accepting expired coupons and said deadline has now come and gone, I decided to dump everything earlier than 2011.  Now I’m down to three containers and a view out the window.

You can piss and moan about how difficult it is getting to be to get deals.  You can decry the extreme couponing shows and sites that are killing it for you.  You can have wet dreams about the double-dipping cats in August 2009 (or 06, or 1915, for pete’s sake).  But the one thing you have to do is adapt.  In all honesty, having Dominicks take coupons expired back a year was not that much of a turn on; quite frequently, when I went to clip the coupons, I’d find I had clipped and used them back when they were current.  If you only had a couple of inserts, I suppose, it would be an advantage, but otherwise?  Not so much.

I guess I’m sad because it’s over, but we will all survive.  Jewel, until May, 2009 (I think) took expired coupons; Ultra used to take six months back.  We just modify our game plans and go on.  My advice is to stock up on inserts from any and everyone, from the Trib, the Sun Times, the Butthole Bugler…take ’em if they’re offered to you.  With a sufficiently large stock of current inserts, it won’t matter if a deal only comes along every six months or more – we’re covered.

Remember, we shop in bargain basements – ours.