You can also stop those nuisance credit card offers at optoutprescreen.com. My mail has been cut down by at least 2/3 - maybe more.

EG

EG - it works! I promise! Just make sure you add the names of everyone over 18 who has, or still does, live(d) in your house.

Gatormom - thanks for the info - I've made a note.

It's crazy to have to feel so paranoid these days. Yes, no one has a right to consider my personal information sufficient to direct unwanted trash to my mailbox. Just something else to shred and put in the recycle with everything else along with those wretched checks that come with my credit card statements.

I would rather do what Andy Rooney suggested on 60 Minutes. Take all the junk offers, stuff it into the postage paid envelopes and mail. Let the companies sending us this crap pay the postage.

Linda

I heard that if a person writes "refused" on junk mail, crosses out the bar code and the address, and drops it back into the mail, then the sender will have to pay postage due when it is returned to them. That usually results in the sender taking the person off their mailing list. I've done it a few times, seems to work.

Lorna

LOL, Linda, that is great! The only thing that would stop me is wondering how the companies would dispose of it. At least I compost all mine. I personally thank Capit*l One for it's HUGE contribution to my compost pile and new lasagna beds.

The downside is, I have three bags of old mail waiting to be shredded, sitting on my office floor. Always other things to do beside shred paper, it seems...

:)
Dee

First, it takes far less time to sort thru mail as it comes in than to attack a huge pile later, so quit stockpiling it. I usually have it pretty well sorted by the time I get back to the house from the mailbox. The marketers are getting pretty cagey in packaging, so it is hard to tell what's real and what's junk (as Lorna mentioned above) and I'm just as annoyed as the rest of you. But, I refuse to waste my time, dedicate counterspace or spend money on a super special shredder. I do acknowledge that identity theft is real, but like so much else in today's world, the 'fear factor' marketing of all sorts of products to prevent it is way out of control.

I open most of it and if there's a postage paid (pp) envelope, I don't bother stuffing it, I just seal it up and mail it back to them empty. If the contents are name/detail specific, I rip them up, or maybe shred them if I'm in the mood, if they aren't loaded with cardboard type stuff which jams my kindergarten grade shredder. I hardly believe a bad guy is going to maurade my trash and piece together that credit app or try to cash the 'instant check' soaked in whatever unsavory drippings are in my kitchen wastebasket.

A twist often mentioned years ago is to tape the pp cards/envelopes securely to a brick or other heavy object and mail it - funny, but too much work for me. I also collect the annoying subscription cards that fall out of magazines as well as the stiff page pp cards inside and mail them back - blank - as well. Mindless entertainment.

Junk mail is annoying, but I'm afraid we're hard pressed to stop it. Since Marketing 101 subscribes to the 'if it is working, continue' mantra, for every one of us objecting, there are apparently hundreds who fall for it and make money for the company. Otherwise, marketers wouldn't keep doing it. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

For the time being, I'm content to keep my friendly mailman in business going both ways. JMO :o)

Lorna

I shred most of my junk mail not so much for security purposes, but because it works better in the lasagna beds I build and breaks down faster in the compost.

As far as stockpiling, with three jobs, two kids, and a house to take care of, I don't always have time to stop what I'm doing and shred there and then. So, it gets piled up till I can get to it - or I assign shredding to one of the kids as one of their chores, lol.

I also have a ton of school papers and paper from work that I bring home to shred, so it's more than just junk mail.

:)
Dee

I finally got caller ID, but am amazed at how many legitimate callers (my bank, for instance) come thru as 'unknown' or 'out of area' or 'toll free number' so I tend to answer anyway, defeating the whole CID purpose. Well, it does still work for avoiding annoying relatives, so I'll give it that much.

Dee, for your purpose stockpiling does work (and puts the kids to work too!) - I didn't mean to slam .... was just saying that for the folks who stockpile mail and then wonder why they didn't get the cc bill in time to pay w/out penalty ('cuz the bill was in the pile, dummies!).

And, for your amusement (glad I made you laugh, Lorna) another upside to mailing back pp cards/envelopes is that with stuff going out daily, I can see when the 'up flag' on my mailbox is down, so know when my new quota of junk mail has arrived without walking all the way to the mailbox! More mindless entertainment .... :o)

I got a caller ID package about a year ago when we went wireless, and the ID monitor or whatever you call it is still sitting in the box on the back of my desk.

:)
Dee

I just hauled it all down from the attic, borrowed a high capacity shredder and keep vowing to reduce them to compost ...... just haven't quite gotten around to it yet - you know how it is. I am so ashamed!

Meanwhile, get the ID monitor up and running, for entertainment purposes if nothing else!

Closer to home, I'd like to see my City stop sending 3 diesel spewing, noise polluting trucks up and down each street every pick-up day ... one truck for trash pick-up, another truck for the recycle bins and still another truck for yard clippings. Some genius needs to invent one truck to do it all - they've already got the robot arms, so why is this so hard?

In my tiny 'hood of about 67 homes on two cul-de-sac streets, trash pick-up is utilized by all (excluding any vacancies, of course), but recycle and yard waste seem to average, at best, 40 and 10% respectively, yet the trucks roll thru unfailingly. Just seems like there should be a better way.

Sorry, this is off topic ..... sometimes I just get on a roll! :o)

Charity calls are grrrrrrr..... I used to be polite because these people are just doing their jobs but they like to lay guilt on you and that just gets my back up. It is particularly annoying when you offer say $10 and they tell you that $25 is their minimum! Excuse me? Click.

Maureen

I did some search online and this is the best resource so far available online ( correct me if I am wrong).

I have done this 5 months ago and my mailbox is literally empty.

I check my mail twice a month now. I even took the letter from samples provided and wrote it to a local Chinese restaurant that keeps putting fliers in my door. They stopped in the whole subdivision.

http://awakening.weebly.com/stop-junk-mail.html