How to Stop Receiving Unwanted Mail

Are you trying to live a more edited life, but your mailbox teems with catalogs, serving as daily reminders of your former excessive ways? Do you receive multiple “Important Information Enclosed” envelopes a day–ones that never contain important information? Does your recycling bin teem with unopened junk mail? Do you want to get rid of it? Then a service called Catalog Choice may be for you.

The service provides 4 ways of combating junk mail:

1. A free general membership allows users simply create an account and search for companies to opt-out of unwanted catalogs, coupons, credit card offers, donation requests, and other junk mail. You can also enter their zip code to get delisted from phone books. Catalog Choice then acts on users’ behalf to get their opt-outs processed by the senders.
2. For $20/year they protect your name from being sold by data brokers–the guys who buy and sell your address to direct mail marketers.
3. For $6.75, you can buy one of their self-addressed envelopes which handles up to 15 places to be unsubscribed from.
4. MailStop™ Mobile is their free download in the iTunes store that  allows customers to use their mobile devices to take pictures of unwanted mail. Once uploaded, Catalog Choice will process and manage the opt-out requests.

While it might seem easier to just toss the stuff, these daily paper assaults create clutter and confusion in our homes, not to mention a significant amount of waste. By shelling out $30/year or so on Catalog Choice and switching all of your bills to paperless, you can probably achieve a mailbox that stays empty for weeks.

image credit: Smallbiztrends

Correction: Previous version of this post did not include “General Membership” or “MailStop™ Mobile” as part of Catalog Choices options. 

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