Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Living Better With Less... Junk Mail



I always laugh when I see articles and blog posts about dealing with your mail; buying special mail sorters, have a recycling bin near the door... bla bla bla... The real solution as with most things in life is to simplify. The less mail you have, the less time you have to spend dealing with it.

Collect your junk mail for about a week to see where your mail is coming from so you can stop it for good:
  • Stop pre-approved credit card offers at OptOutPreScreen.com. BUT this doesn't stop offers from banks you have accounts with, you need to call them directly
  • For unwanted catalogs, all the info you need is usually on the back page; customer service phone number, account number (if you have one) and/or source code. After calling, you can also go to CatalogChoice.org to further stop them
  • Switch to paperless billing for all your accounts; credit cards, banks, electric, gas, phone...
  • Stop most other junk mail at DMAchoice.org

4 comments:

  1. sammywFebruary 1, 2010 at 11:44 AM

    thank you, thank you for these sites, i am pretty good about managing the clutter, but would rather not take the time (or waste the trees) sorting, throwing away, shredding, etc. all the excess junk! can't wait to get started this week!

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  2. lauraFebruary 1, 2010 at 12:27 PM

    you're very welcome!

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  3. AnonymousNovember 19, 2010 at 10:46 AM

    I went to the opt out & also did the option for unwanted email. Just to let you & your readers know my experience - the amount of unwanted emails I get has vastly multipled. Not sure why? But sadly true... Not too happy about that. Maybe by 'removing' your email address, it simply alerts them (spammers) to your address or they sell your address and remove the current companies? Doesn't make sense, but can't figure it out. Again, just wanted to share my experience with the process.

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  4. lauraNovember 19, 2010 at 11:15 AM

    anonymous: did you follow the link i provided or google opt out. there are many imposter sites out there. i've personally used these sites and has totally worked for me. i'm sorry it didn't for you.

    i know i get junk mail if i order something online or thru a catalog, and it happened when i registered at the post office to change my address when i moved. perhaps something else happened around the same time you opt-ed out?

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