Unnecessary mail is not only annoying; it’s a lot of wasted paper.

My mail box used to be overrun with junk mail and other unnecessary mail from utilities, banks, and retail stores.  I took a few simple steps to greatly reduce the amount of unwanted mail that comes to my house.

1. Opt Out of credit card & insurance mailings.

You can electronically sign up and opt out of credit card mailings for five years, or you can print out a form and mail it in to opt out permanently. I did this several years ago and I never receive credit card or insurance offers.

2. Get off  commercial mailing lists.

Register with Directmail.com and get your name off of commercial mailing lists.

3. Sign up for electronic bill & bank statements.

This will significantly reduce the amount of mail that comes to your house. If you need a copy for your records I recommend either saving a PDF version, or printing out just the statement you need. There is always excess paper in a mailed version of a bill; this allows you to only print the paper you need.

4. Break up with the yellow pages.

With widespread use of online yellow pages, who really uses the yellow pages anymore? So unless you need them as a booster chair, it’s likely that they don’t warrant all the paper waste. Say goodbye to the yellow pages.

5. Kick the catalog habit.

Do you really need or want all those catalogs? It’s likely you order online anyway, so why not get the paper copy out of your life?

You can sign up for the free service, Catalog Choice, to add you to a no-send list for catalog spam. Also, call the company that is sending the catalog and ask them to stop. I have done this many times.

The customer service representatives are always nice and I’ve even had them tell me these are great ideas.

What are you waiting for?

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Editor: Jennifer Townsend

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