Welcome to America's new coupon craze. It began about three years ago as a sensible response to an economic catastrophe, but has since morphed into something more complex...a national fixation with refusing to pay retail, that has turned otherwise normal families, into coupon-clipping, Dumpster-diving (for circulars), cashier-pestering stockpilers who march through grocery stores with bulging binders of coupons, and fill shopping carts with more free jars of mustard and cat food, than they could ever use in a lifetime.

After declining for more than a decade, use of coupon rose sharply in October 2008 as the economy collapsed, and it soared 27% in 2009, according to the marketing firm Inmar. With unemployment still high and consumers still jittery, couponing has not dropped during the recovery, holding steady at 3.3 billion redemptions last year, which 2.1 billion was for food alone. Couponing is alive and doing well.