Getting Rid of Mail
Aug. 23rd, 2014 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI have posted many, many, many times about setting up a password manager (I use LastPass), and then going on an account opening spree so I could move everything online and stop paper everything. There is Much Debate about the best password manager, and I don't really care. I like one that has a cloud subscription option (does it reduce security? Of course! And we should all be eating minimally processed whole foods all the time, yet there are still a lot of fast food operations out there) but you may feel otherwise.
After turning off paper billing, it is important to make sure you have an effective notification scheme so you remember to actually pay your bills. I use autopay (I generally set this up at the site where the bill is coming from, such as the credit card company, or the utility, rather than at my bank, but there are a lot of ways to do this) for a lot of things. I eventually set up mechanisms for transferring funds online, rather than going into the bank and writing checks to myself; you probably have direct deposit set up with your paycheck, or your entitlements or whatever. I am increasingly switching from email notifications to text messages. And I'm experimenting with text messages for other notifications, too, such as shipping alerts. So far, this is great, but I could see it getting out of hand at some point.
I signed up for MailStop and CatalogChoice.com. MailStop is no longer available, altho if you already have it, it still works. I think Paper Karma is roughly the same system and maybe someday MailStop will relaunch. Basically, you take a picture of the unwanted catalog or whatever, send it in and magic happens. They will even notify the regulator if the catalog isn't complying with your expressed wish to make it stop. Sometimes, it is worth it to go through the catalog's system for turning stuff off, just to make it stick, but that is rarely necessary. I'll also mention that I have a policy of unsubscribing from absolutely every conceivable email that offers that. Honestly, I know where your website is; don't bug me.
I cannot emphasize enough how interconnected these are. If you only do one or two of them, it is just not as effective. But if you do all of them (and you sign up for the Do Not Call registry and so forth), you can drastically reduce the "noise" of advertising that we all have been subjected to.
USPS has a nice app that you can use to do Mail Holds through, among other things (3 day minimum, and you cannot have more than one hold set up at once, which is a bummer). Obvs, you can still do it through the website, too. FedEx will also do mail holds, altho I'm a little suspicious of them right now. I think a mail hold that should have been expired wound up slowing down a package for a few days. No harm done, however, UPS will charge you, but you have some choices for package redirection, some of which cost more than others. In an ideal world, your neighbor will be overjoyed and reliable about checking for packages and getting them into your house without doing anything else untoward (actually, I have a neighbor who does exactly this, and she's the backstop for these services). But if you don't have such a neighbor, you can make it so packages don't sit on your doorstep, or mail in your mailbox, when you are not around to deal with them.
You can really tell how successful you have been at reducing your mail, when you get the mail and so forth delivered at the end of a hold. If you've done a good job, there won't be much there, and about a third of it will be addressed to "Resident".
After turning off paper billing, it is important to make sure you have an effective notification scheme so you remember to actually pay your bills. I use autopay (I generally set this up at the site where the bill is coming from, such as the credit card company, or the utility, rather than at my bank, but there are a lot of ways to do this) for a lot of things. I eventually set up mechanisms for transferring funds online, rather than going into the bank and writing checks to myself; you probably have direct deposit set up with your paycheck, or your entitlements or whatever. I am increasingly switching from email notifications to text messages. And I'm experimenting with text messages for other notifications, too, such as shipping alerts. So far, this is great, but I could see it getting out of hand at some point.
I signed up for MailStop and CatalogChoice.com. MailStop is no longer available, altho if you already have it, it still works. I think Paper Karma is roughly the same system and maybe someday MailStop will relaunch. Basically, you take a picture of the unwanted catalog or whatever, send it in and magic happens. They will even notify the regulator if the catalog isn't complying with your expressed wish to make it stop. Sometimes, it is worth it to go through the catalog's system for turning stuff off, just to make it stick, but that is rarely necessary. I'll also mention that I have a policy of unsubscribing from absolutely every conceivable email that offers that. Honestly, I know where your website is; don't bug me.
I cannot emphasize enough how interconnected these are. If you only do one or two of them, it is just not as effective. But if you do all of them (and you sign up for the Do Not Call registry and so forth), you can drastically reduce the "noise" of advertising that we all have been subjected to.
USPS has a nice app that you can use to do Mail Holds through, among other things (3 day minimum, and you cannot have more than one hold set up at once, which is a bummer). Obvs, you can still do it through the website, too. FedEx will also do mail holds, altho I'm a little suspicious of them right now. I think a mail hold that should have been expired wound up slowing down a package for a few days. No harm done, however, UPS will charge you, but you have some choices for package redirection, some of which cost more than others. In an ideal world, your neighbor will be overjoyed and reliable about checking for packages and getting them into your house without doing anything else untoward (actually, I have a neighbor who does exactly this, and she's the backstop for these services). But if you don't have such a neighbor, you can make it so packages don't sit on your doorstep, or mail in your mailbox, when you are not around to deal with them.
You can really tell how successful you have been at reducing your mail, when you get the mail and so forth delivered at the end of a hold. If you've done a good job, there won't be much there, and about a third of it will be addressed to "Resident".