US Mail: I hate how they bury things I *need* to see in ads and junk mail

It seems like I comb through a pile of crap and ad flyers each day to find an actual bill, which if I don't find, will get me in trouble. Then I have to sort the fundraising and junk mail credit card and insurance offers in actual envelopes from the perhaps 1 bill or important notice that I must read.

I'm not typically a crank about things like this and try to refrain from hyperbole unless I'm being silly or joking.

However, my dislike of mail delivery has gotten so intense that I'd prefer it to be just a couple days per week.

I throw away or recycle probably 80% and much of it without opening --though what really gets me is that I have to open a lot of it in order to shred it --even though I didn't want it in the first place.

And those stupid pizza coupon and KFC coupon ads that just make it that much harder to even effectively carry a day's mail for sorting.

And if you go on vacation? You will get so much mail (and my post office lines are misery so no, I'm not stopping my mail)...the pile of mail in a week will take lots of time to sort through --and almost all will be shredding or recycled.

This is a nearly complete waste, though I don't begrudge postal employees salaries for hard work.

I do hate the mail now. I really do.

Google "eliminating junk mail" and you get about a half million hits on methods of doing this. It may take a couple months to start seeing the results, but it can be reduced significantly if you put out the effort.

Hope this helps. :hi:

Now that you mention it, though, it's a newly grown and employed kid now getting junk mail at my house. You have just made my day!

:hi:

signed online to stop the junk mail in general.

the flyers, i don't know how to stop (they aren't even addressed to me).

the credit card offers dried up for a while, then they came back with a vengence.

the companies i already have a business relationship essentially spam with offers and other mailings apart from my bills. i hate it. but what am i going to do? there's one company for internet in my neighborhood, i'm on a contract for cell phone --and then the other ones send me offers anyway, the DNC, DCCC and DSCC is perhaps the worst, blanketing my mail with who knows what --though I only give online -- I never respond to mailed solicitations for this very reason and I tell fundraisers this --though I've stopped answering the phone or giving in response to them also (I watch the news, I know where my money is needed -a phone call isn't providing me better information about that).

i'm just ready to give up on all this stupid, freaking mail.

it's intrusive and wasteful.

i need the handful of bills i get, and my property tax notices and my W-2's and correspondence from my homeowners association --the rest of it is just crap.

this is like watching a one hour tv program with 55 minutes of commercials. ridiculous.

If I could get my family trained in the concept of "handle it once," instead of throwing the mail on a different flat surface each day for me to round up on my day off and deal with, not only would my house be less cluttered, I would have my bills paid on time. Rarely does a bill land where the bills need to be.

:mad:

You really, really don't want people who are not responsible for the bills sorting the mail, it's practically guaranteed that they will eventually throw something important in the trash.

Far better that it lay around for you to deal with than you get sent to collections because someone threw the wrong thing in the trash.

90% of my mail stops there.

As far as bills go, I pay everything online. The only thing that I don't pay online is the mortgage. The bastards only want to do automatic withdrawal and I don't give anyone that kind of access to my bank account. But they'll be paid off by next Jan.

Junk mail can go a lot cheaper. It is government supported to a degree. Making the post office private would force it to compete with the Fedex and would reduce your junk mail. I think there are huge environmental reasons to do this.

several dollars to mail a letter or bill payment.

I want to see how that works out.

damage to the environment nor is it costing taxpayers a dime.

The fire department is apples and grapes.

ecological damage. Providing more economic cost to move something will remove some of that.

Raising the cost will also be a hardship on the poor who don't have computers and still mail payments. Privatization has always, let me repeat, always resulted in more expense and less service. I know turning our postal system over to Fed Ex is a heart's desire of yours. I don't share your beliefs in this or any of St. Ronnie's other ideas, either.

would do the job WITHOUT privatizing the USPS. Mass mailers are sent cheaply and WE pay with our standard rates.

I NEVER look at those ads anyway. They go right in the trash. I think the wrapping our IMPORTANT mail in the junk is a way of making sure we at least handle each piece of it.

I wish there was a way to opt out of junk mail the way there is to opt out of junk phone calls.

as it is.

private corporations would make it worse. they'd probably send us packages during the day that need to be retrieved at the "private" post office and then we go there and get marketed to for a time share.

oh no freaking way.

It is self-sustaining. The "junk" mail is, right now, the reason why a first-class stamp is 44 cents and not a buck or more.

so no more envelopes to find then open in order to shred and of course no stamps wasted mailing crap out.

I'm posting about the futility of the mail system the way the USPS is operating it.

I think it's gotten so stupid that it's beyond belief.

office.

and most of my spam ends up in the spam filter.

if only my mail were handled as well.

was wrapped in slick ads with the ends folded in. It made an envelope and I only found it when I tipped the whole thing in a particular direction.

The bulk mailers are given HUGE postage discounts for pre-sorting mail that can be sorted via machinery that is FAR beyond what is necessary for the postal workers who operate the machines. Skids and containers of presorted machinable bulk (junk) mail is then UNSORTED by being unpacked/unbundled and added to the stream of first class mail and flats to combine them and make it so the carriers deliver it in walk-sequenced order without having to sort it at the post offices that they work at.

The furthest pre-sorting required by mailers is only to the FIVE digit zip code. However, most of it is presorted to either carrier-route or walk-sequence, which is unnecessary and drastically reduces USPS revenue that would otherwise be received from those bulk and mass-mailers.

That is a fact. The money those companies pay keep our mail system going. It's also one of the only choices left for small local businesses, ones who can't afford big advertising campaigns.

Your local corner pizzaria is hoping that coupon might get one more regular customer.

If you hate the stuff just toss it in the recycle bin.

to be good. Yelp and other tools help people find good local places.

cause of yours. It will be as much a failure as all of the other privatization scams have been. Increased costs and less service for people. It is time to put Reagan's ideas in the same place he is.

I wonder how many of the privatizers realize that rural areas would be hardest hit?

Big population hubs and areas with lots of apartments and high housing density are much easier to deliver to.

Folks out in the boonies would have fewer deliveries and higher costs.

No doubt rural areas would be very hard hit. Everyone would be spending more. Privatization always winds up providing more expense and less service.

Spend thirty seconds doing it online in your underwear. :)

https://holdmail.usps.com/holdmail/landingView.do

:eyes:

Maybe I'll put a wastebasket out on the porch and they can just "deliver" the junk mail directly into it.