Less Junk Mail = Less Stress and Less Pollution

Getting the mail is a favorite activity of both my children. I think it is the possibility that something interesting may be waiting for them inside the mailbox that makes them so excited. (Kat and Alex – thanks for your letters!)

The excitement over mail time had long faded for me. Getting the mail had simply become a pain in the neck, in large part due to the amount of junk mail we received. It was annoying on several levels. It took time to sort through the mail and it had to be sorted through carefully to make sure nothing important was hidden in the stack. It was also such a waste. We recycled the paper but knew that was only addressing a small portion of the problem. Something had to be done.

I started with Catalogue Choice. This free service provides an easy way to let companies know you no longer want to receive their catalogues. It proved to be especially helpful for us because additional names can be included in your profile. The previous owners of our home apparently loved catalogue shopping so we had been inundated with their many, many favorites.

Then I moved on to canceling offers from credit cards and insurance companies, the next big chunk of our junk mail. OptOutPrescreen.com, a site authorized by Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion, allows individuals to opt out of firm offers of credit or insurance. You can opt out online for a five year period or opt out permanently by mail.

Then I started making calls. Not all of the merchants honor requests made through Catalogue Choice so I followed up on those few with requests to really, I mean it, please take us off your mailing list. And I began asking the nonprofits we support to email us instead.

A year later our junk mail has been reduced by at least 90%. When I began, I thought it would be easy to get people to stop sending us things we did not want but if I had known how time consuming it would be, I would have signed up for Green Dimes. For $20 per year they will remove your name from junk mail lists, monitor those lists to make sure your name does not reappear, and let you pick the catalogues you want to receive. They recently added a free basic service as well in case your budget is tight.

Since the average American receives 11 pieces of unsolicited junk mail each week – almost 600 pieces every year, according to the Center for a New American Dream – this is one of those areas where small individual changes can really add up.

Help yourself and the environment at the same time by reducing your junk mail today. Who knows, maybe mail time will regain its sparkle for you, too!