How much junk mail do ~you~ get?

Every now and again, a company will do something that I just think is great. And as you know, I'm not a reviewing blog or anything of the like, but I wanted to tell you about another cool company. I told you about MommyTags the other day, but this site helps the Earth. Oh, and you too (directly).

It's a site called GreenDimes. Have you heard of it? You can get a free account ~or~ a paid account. The differences between the two is with the paid service, they do all the work for you and with the free account, they give you the instructions. (Personally, I picked the paid service, but I don't have a lot of free time.)

What they do is reduce your junk mail. I signed up at the end of August and I have already seen a ~huge~ reduction in my mailbox. I don't get any of the advertisements like that blue envelope "valupak", "pre-approved" credit applications, insurance, grocery store circulars, etc. BUT, the best thing is, if I ~wanted~ any of these types of advertisement, say I really like the grocery store circulars, I can opt to remain on the list. I personally don't want anything in the mail, so I chose to opt to remove my name from all the national lists.

The second ULTRA cool thing is how they deal with catalogs. I was confused at first, thinking they would stop everything and I had to tell them which ones I wanted to keep. I thought that would be hard, as I didn't know what ones I wanted off hand. But I had it all backwards. When I receive a catalog I do not want, I simply login to my account and click the "select catalog" button. They have virtually every catalog in their database (if they don't, you can submit it to be added) and you simply click "add". Voila! They take care of the rest. (well, that's with the paid account. I think with the basic account, they'll give you the instructions on who to contact to remove your name.) Since I have started adding in catalogs on 10/09/08, I have removed myself from 59 catalogs. FIFTY NINE!!! I had no idea I even got that many.

What ~I~ do is when I get the mail, I take all the catalogs (lots since it's xmas season) and put them on my desk next to my computer. The next time I sit down, I simply take the ones I don't want to receive again and use that as my "to do" list. I hop on the website and add them as I go. It's SO easy. SO EASY. If there is a catalog I want to keep recieving, I just don't add it. Oh - and if you want to get back ON the catalog list for any reason, just click on the "Cancel Opt-Out" link and you'll get it again.

Another bonus with the paid service is I can have multiple housebold names under my one account. If I get a catalog in under my husband's name or my maiden name, I just have to select that name from my pull down list (I can add as many as I want for my address). They also take care of anything delivered to "occupant" or "resident". The other bonuses to the paid service is: Automatic Removal (I've already spoken to this, but there are some places that make you send in written requests. GreenDimes will mail you a stamped postcard to sign and all you have to do is pop it in the mail.), Monthly Monitoring (continual monitoring of your name on junk mail lists), Unlimited Household name, 5 trees planted and 24/7 Customer Service (Not that it's hard to figure out, but when you do have a question, they get back to you immediately. And they are super nice too).

The paid service costs $20 and the free service is free. Actually, THEY PAY YOU $1 for signing up! When you click on "sign up", the first thing you get to pick is what you want done with your dollar. You can choose to have a tree planted for it. You can choose to get a free issue of Plenty Magazine. Or you can choose to have the $1 mailed to you. Pretty freaking cool, eh?



As you can see, I have added a text link above and a button below. You can click on either to start the sign up process. And, if you can't do it today, I put in a button on my sidebar for you to come back to later.