Thankful Thursday

Junk mail! No, I am not thankful for JUNK MAIL because I think it is a shameful waste of manpower, paper, postage and additions to our landfills. However, this week I thankfully got a newsletter with a list of ways to fight Junk Mail. Here are a few of their suggestions:

1. Send a letter or visit junkbusters.com and "opt out" from the five main list vendors. If you tell these vendors not to rent information about you or your household, you will cut back on Junk Mail from hundreds of companies. Junkbusters' website gives you the address and even a draft letter to send.

2. Call your phone companies and tell them you want to opt out of "CPNI sharing." Unless you tell them not to, phone companies generally have the right to sell all the information about you that appears on your phone bills: they can sell the number you call, the time and duration of the call, anything on your bill. Marketers use this information to target Junk Mail. Read more about CPNI sharing at epic.org/privacy/cpni.

3. Tell the credit bureaus to take you off their "pre-screened" list. These lists are the reason you get so many credit card offers. (When I get a credit card offer, I personally fold everything up, put it in their prepaid envelope with a note to NOT send anything else to me. I then mail it BACK to them--it has cut back on my credit card offers!) Call this number (1-888-5-optout), and tell them you want to opt out. You should stop getting the offers in about six weeks.

4. Make sure you have registered your phone number with the "Do Not Call" database. Call 1-888-382-1222 for this service.

The newsletter urges us to start our plan today to feel protected and safe. I am beginning today! I look forward to receiving a lot less Junk Mail--and Junk Phone Calls--in the future!