July 19, 2010

Opt Out


I'm not sure how it happened, I usually carefully protect both my home address and email address from unsolicited mail, but all of a sudden, I was receiving numerous unwanted catalogs.

Upon returning from vacation last year, my counter was covered in catalogs. The one thing I dread when returning from vacation is going through all the piled up mail, I was overwhelmed. I decided that I no longer wanted to take part in this unnecessary use of paper, gas, energy and time. For the next month, I vowed to take the time to call every single company that was sending me catalogs and opt out of their circulation. So each day if a catalog (s) was in my mailbox, I walked into the house and called. ("No time like the present.") Though it took some time, eventually the catalogs stopped coming and guess what, I don't miss them at all.

Would it be hard to give up your catalogs? Do you feel like you would be missing out?

2 comments:

simply brookes: said...

Gosh, I long for good catalogs. I guess that is the difference between being new to a community and a long time home-owner. The days I actually get a catalog to spy through is a good day. Or am I just needing to get a life?

Ha...see your point, but I can't give up on my West Elm which is really the only one I get.

Good on ya, and you are saving paper!

H Young said...

I can see your point about enjoying good catalogs too. I was really inundated with catalogs that I would have never even looked at. What I ended up doing was subscribing to online notifications of my favorites instead. Not the same as a catalog though. Maybe you could just pick your top ones and opt out of the rest.