It's worth a rummage through your drawers for any last Co-op dividend stamps. They have to be redeemed before the end of the year.

The familiar green 4p stamps used to be issued on the retailer's 'Double Dividend' days.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, shareholders of the CI Co-operative Society would get an extra 4% back on their supermarket spend in the form of the stamps.

Islanders would then stick them to the cards to be redeemed against a future shopping trip or paid into their share account.  Or they might have chosen to stick them in a charity box for local good causes to benefit from.

But that was the past, almost.

At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Co-op stopped its 'double divi' days and replaced it with an alternative loyalty scheme that pays 5% back instead of 4% all the time.

In June 2021, the retailer announced the change would be made permanent, and that it would stop accepting the stamps at the end of 2022.

That means shoppers have just a few days left to use up their completed 4p stamp cards and any £1 stamps they have.

Even CEO Mark Cox has been doing some 11th hour stamp sticking:

"There is people like myself who have left it to the last moment to stick those stamps onto cards and start spending them in stores, so we are seeing plenty being spent at the moment."

It is a great little way of getting a bonus at Christmas, and for every £1 card completed they get an additional 5% on top."

The Co-op boss says the reminder to spend the stamps has led to some very old examples being discovered:

We received these stamps this week, some of the very first stamps issued by the Society.
Definitely worth checking those kitchen drawers you never know what you’ll find. pic.twitter.com/iIiXElZ9HQ

— Mark Cox (@MarkCoxJsy) December 20, 2022

Those who don't have the Co-op issued cards can stick the 4pm stamps in £1 groups on plain card or paper and exchange them for cash at a Post Office counter within the Co-op stores.