A lot of shoppers think that right after Christmas is when you can find some of the biggest deals of the season.

This isn’t as good of a trick as it used to be. I did see Christmas merchandise marked half off Saturday. But selections were very picked over. Besides, if you watched the sales when the holiday merchandise first hit the shelves in the fall (and ignored the “I’m not ready for Christmas yet!” rants), you might have seen prices that were as good or better.

My Christmas sale cleanup involved buying three jars of spices that were still on holiday sale – and the coupon was expiring soon.

Here are the sales fliers for the Monroe, Mich., area, as found in the Sunday papers today for the 48162 zip code. These are all from The Monroe Evening News except where I note Detroit Free Press:

• CVS Pharmacy has Charmin, Tide and Duracell for $5.88 each. Look for P&G coupon matches in today’s coupon stack. Lots of CVS brand items on sale. Sweet N Low is buy one get one free.
• Meijer has flannel twin sheets at $9.99. Assorted totes and bins for storing Christmas decorations are featured. Dynamo is buy one get two free – and that deal frequently sells out in Monroe, so do not wait if you want that sale. Center cut half boneless pork loin $1.49 a pound. Pure Protein bars 10 for $10.
• Kroger in Monroe, Milan and Dundee (sale starts Monday) has half gallon milk, buns, bread on 10 for $10 deals. Catfish fillets $3.99 a pound. Buy $25 or more in P&G items with your shopper card and get $5 off at checkout (use today’s coupon packet).
• Kmart in Monroe has all storage bins on sale. Selected toys on clearance. Look for sales on outerwear and cold weather accessories. Buy $25 worth of P&G products get a $10 Visa prepaid card.
• Kmart in Southgate and Taylor (Freep ad) has Kraft mac and cheese at five for $3. Buy one get one free muffins and turnovers. Lots of seafood specials. Small veggie tray for $5.99.
• Walgreens has coupon in flier for diet Pepsi. Puffs at 89 cents. Buy at least $10 in P&G products and get Register Rewards deals. The $1 deals include Noxzema shave cream. Look in flier for photo lab deals.
• Vitamin World has coupons in its flier and information about its Savings Passport program.
• Target has assorted DVDs on sale. School supplies for January semester include notebooks at $1 each. Assorted storage bins on sale – if you’re going to keep something from year to year, it has to be in sturdy bins and not hand-me-down cardboard.

Also look for in the Monroe ad stack: Best Buy, Kohl’s, Elder-Beerman, Bradford Exchange, Durocher’s, Sears and Menards.

Also look for in the Detroit ad stack: Blockbuster, Verizon Wireless, ABC Warehouse and JCPenney.