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[ # ] 30-Day Challenge: Unsubscribe from Catalogs
March 2nd, 2008 under 30-Day Challenges


My 30-day challenge this month is to unsubscribe from as many catalogs as possible that arrive at the house.

This is a case where making the environmentally friendly choice provides an immediate positive return.

It’s Sunday, so there has only been one day of mail so far. That was enough to knock off 8 glossy catalogs.

Unsubscribed catalogs:

- Eastbay
- Performance Bike
- William Sonoma
- REI
- Surdyk’s
- Pottery Barn
- Pottery Barn Bed & Bath
- LL Bean

I imagine our postman Pat’s spine is thanking us.

While we risk being uninformed consumers without monthly reminders of all the crap we should be buying, I think that’s a risk worth taking. We’ll help avoid printing hundreds of pounds of paper every year and conserve the fossil fuels used to print & deliver the catalogs.


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    Read the Comments

    [ # 4779 ] Comment from Aaron [March 2, 2008, 11:51 am]

    I’m pretty anal about the unneeded postal mail I get and I have it under good control. I barely get any postal mail at all. Here’s a couple sites that other Deets readers may find helpful:

    Catalog Choice, DMA’s Mail Preference Service.

    The other tip is to pay attention to correspondence from banks you use (especially your mortgage company!) and make sure to take the effort to opt-out of any sharing of your information to third parties when you’re notified about the opportunity.

    [ # 4780 ] Comment from Aaron [March 2, 2008, 12:02 pm]

    …and to opt out of most credit card offers:

    optoutprescreen.com

    [ # 4781 ] Comment from The Other Mike [March 2, 2008, 5:12 pm]

    Dang…I should have been more aggressive in managing my mortgage junk mail, I thought I caught them all, but I have been getting tons of it.

    But, then again, maybe it is from other home-related paperwork filings, because at least the mortgage industry works hard to spell my name correctly. I swear each day at least one piece changes the spelling of my name, and just when I think it has hit all the available permutations…they prove me wrong.

    On the bright side, do you need any coupons?

    [ # 4782 ] Comment from kohler [March 2, 2008, 10:37 pm]

    In our case, the catalogs showing up are from companies we’ve ordered from online. Apparently, they thought that because we used their website to buy things, we’d also be interested in buying things from print catalogs.

    [ # 5031 ] Comment from Aaron [April 2, 2008, 8:55 pm]

    Those coupons you get every week? I just unsubscribed to them too. I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier:

    http://www.advo.com/consumersupport.html

    [ # 5032 ] Comment from The Other Mike [April 2, 2008, 9:38 pm]

    What, I can unsubscribe from receiving the 17 different sets of coupons I receive each week?

    But do I have to do it for each of the 5 versions of my name that those butchers send them to me under or can I do it once for my home address?

    [ # 5033 ] Comment from kohler [April 2, 2008, 10:02 pm]

    Looks like this one covers Valpak’s coupon dump.

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