41 Pounds

That’s right, 41 pounds of junk mail is what we receive in a year. Seriously. The average person gets more mail in either a week or a month than their grandparents used to get in a year. And did you know that when you move, the US Postal service sells your address so that the catalogs and mailings follow you wherever you go? Today’s tip is the solution to this vexing problem.

For a while, I stopped my junk mail with a service that used to be called Green Dimes but is now called Tonic. But I can’t figure out how to log into my old account (and they never got back to my email inquiry) so I’m moving on to 41pounds. Plus it was started in a suburb of Detroit and as a Cleveland native, I feel a certain affinity for down on their luck Great Lakes towns.

Once you sign up, 41 Pounds contacts the direct mail companies for you and gets you off of their lists — credit card offers, catalogs, Val-Paks. You can also opt to keep receiving the catalogs you like.
They also send a few pre-addressed postcards to the companies that annoyingly require a signature from you. It costs $41 for five years and they even donate $15 to the nonprofit of your choice when you sign-up. 

If you need further proof why this will be a life saver — ahem, Classic Structures and Smart Structures! — if you don’t get rid of your junkmail, you’ll spend on average 8 months of your life dealing with it!. I don’t know about you but I can think of a LOT more pleasurable things to do with 8 months of my life than sifting through credit offers.

This service is perfect for Organics & Smarts. It can also work for some Classics and Funs. But, many of you will balk at spending $41 to eliminate their junk mail. So, for you guys, there IS a way to do it for free but it takes time and elbow grease on your part — nothing is ever truly free because often the free way involves work on your part. But if you actually have time on your hands, 41 Pounds partners with a website that tells you how to do it yourself Eco-Cycle.