Rice vouchers from the town

Last month, my family and I received rice vouchers from our town hall. They were sent out in the post. We received them just before Christmas - a lovely Christmas surprise! We are very lucky that we get rice sent to us by family in Akita Prefecture and they have been sending more than usual because of the rice crisis. But even still me do need to buy rice every now and then. These rice vouchers are a great help.

We all got seven vouchers each, from the town. There are six people in my family so it was a total of 42 vouchers. Each voucher is worth 440 yen, so they are worth a total of 18,480 yen to us. You can only use them in select stores. In our town there are six dedicated stores that will accept these rice vouchers. You can use more than one voucher with a purchase - you can use all vouchers if you want too. But the only thing is you don't get change. So it might work out better to pay a bit in cash and save the voucher for the next time. However, they do have an expiry date on them - they are only valid until the end of September this year.

"National Priority Support Local Grant Utilization Project" is printed on each voucher, which implies that this is a nationwide project, but according to my husband, not every town or city has sent them out. Maybe they will be sent at a later date, or you have to collect them. I don't know. Have you received any rice vouchers in the post, or heard anything about how or if you can get them in your municipality?