Seventeen - Rid Your Life of Junk Mail

As Guthrie and I move from place to place, one of our biggest pet peeves is junk mail -- how do they find us??? We receive junk mail daily, and though some can be recycled, it seems that a lot of junk mail uses plastic making them indestructible! The average adult receives about 41 pounds of junk mail a year! I did some research and found some great ideas. It seems that putting one or two of these into action will cut down on waste and unwanted junk.

http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/2005/get-rid-of-junk-mail/

First of all, Guthrie and I started putting "return to sender" on anything no addressed to us. We ran into problems with those pesky catalogues from the previous tenants that have their name as well as "current resident". My insider at the post office told me that those catalogues receive postage at a discounted price, but they do not have a return service, thus, writing "return to sender" will just annoy your mail carrier.

Now, when I receive a catalogue I don't want--which are all of them because I would rather order online and save the resources--I call the 800 number and tell customer service to remove me from the mailing list. This is simple, and legally they have to comply. We didn't want to stop there, so here are some other ideas were are putting into place to cut down on the unwanted paper waste showing up on our doorstep:

1. Be careful when filling out forms or signing up for anything -- make sure that you check the DO NOT MAIL box.

2. Pay all bills online.

3. I also heard that USPS will use your information if your address on file is a permanent one (wish we knew this three months ago!). When moving and updating your forwarding address, check that the move is temporary - six months, instead of permanent.

4. Another pet peeve is the junk mail we get when we donate to an organization: The thank-you letter they sent which just lowered the impact of our donation, the flyer reminding us to renew, etc -- it drives us nuts! Why are you wasting our money reminding us of what we already know. Next time we receive a mailing from MPR and other organizations that we support finically, I will call or email them that because we would like to save resources, Guthrie and I will no longer give money to organizations that send paper solicitations (emails OK). I have heard this has been effective for others, and think it is a good idea.

5. Catalog Choice is a free service that will help you to opt-out of catalogs.

6. Direct Marketing Association will remove you from a lot of listings. The account is active for five years and then you can renew.

7. OptOut helps to remove you from lists of credit card and insurance offers.

8. If you want to go ever further, you can have one company do the leg work for you. For $41 for 5 years, 41lbs will take of this for you and plant at least 15 trees on your behave.

Definitely excited to put this one into place!

Peace!