worth the trip- coupon coma.

remember back in the day, when i used to post something coupon related almost every day? oh, and when my cabinets were puffed out with extra band aids and shampoo, and i had an overflowing box of donate items for the preble street resource center? man, those days were nice.

but then it happens- COUPON FATIGUE.

after a year or more of wringing every possible deal out of every possible store in town, a girl gets tired, or distracted, and let’s those weekend coupon fliers pile up, and even… EXPIRE.

i recently cleaned out my folders to realized that i had indeed lost almost 2 full months of coupon time. blacked out unconscious, i must have been paying full price for everything- TRAGIC. expensively tragic (the worst kind of tragic).

now at this point, the serious coupon clipping mantle has clearly been handed off to maine’s very own extreme couponer, i love to gossip, which is quite liberating (also, she’s a lot better at it). no longer do i feel the pressure to try to keep up with the rest of the coupon bitties, and have time to do other crazy shit like  throw clothing swaps and complain about “easy feet”. but this weekend as i leafed through my sunday circulars, i realized that i actually missed it.

i remember feeling so high (remember that money making vaseline lotion at shaw’s?) when i could grab something for free. like i was pulling off a tiny bank robbery or something.

i also remember having 5 unopened dove deodorants in my supply drawer. now i’m sadly chasing a single stick around my apartment… and sometimes i CAN’T FIND IT.

so this week, i decided that i’m actually gonna start trying to get back into the coupon game.  i have an empty paper box ready for preble street donations, and i feel mentally ready to be able to find my antiperspirant again.

well, it’s going to have to be a gentle re-entry, because there’s kind of shit for deals this week. and actually, i was zooming through the comments on this week’s iheartcvs.com deal rundown, and people seem grouchy that there hasn’t been anything awesome for a while. has the deal climate changed when i was away? are there still bargains to be had out there in the wild? here is what i’m stalking this week (better to start slow i suppose), let me know if i missed anything:

um…AWKWARD: the new rules of regifting.

it's a chip & dip. we got two.

so yesterday i wrote a little post about gift cards, and i showed off my sexy little stash of paper and plastic tickets to paradise.  well, last night after i put up the post, i was inspired to take stock of my collection and realized that this xmas, i had received a $50 gift certificate to go see a show at a local theater.  the paper clearly advertised “any show in the 2010-2011 season!”, and it occurred to me that i should probably go to their website and figure out which show i wanted to see in advance, so i didn’t end up having to see driving miss daisy or some other old people shit. so i’m browsing their 2010-2011 shows and i realize…

THEIR 2010-2011 SEASON ENDED ON JANUARY 23RD!

now, i got a lot of shit the last time i complained about bad gifts, and this particular gesture was in essence not entirely different (in terms of thoughtlessness) than giving me a plasti-stone statuette of polar bears. but, there’s just something about realizing that you’ve been regifted  that makes you feel like complete crap! especially when it’s something that you actually want,  and then you realize that it’s expired and that you were essentially gifted a colorful piece of paper that the original recipient didn’t want.  it’s sort of the holiday equivalent of getting punk’d.

but, we live in a culture of constant and unnecessary consumption. every time i go to the goodwill, i think “if the universe never produced another basket for the next 10,000 years, we would still be ok”. at least with a regift,  you’re not directly supporting the avalanche of pointless and unwanted consumer goods that bury us every holiday season.  in theory, regifting is a good idea. so why does it feel so bad?

1. a regift says- “this wasn’t good enough for me, but i’m sure it’ll be fine for you”.

2. an obvious regift makes the recipient feel like they weren’t worthy of you spending any time or money on them.

3. if you don’t want it, there’s a good chance that it kind of sucks.

so keeping these things in mind, i decided to make up my own rules of regifting: