stop USPS spam mail

I hate advertisements in my mail. Time to teach them a lesson.

Snail-mail-spam is the worst. I mean with email we have built-in filters. Why can’t I opt-out of snail mail? Or that magical report spam option on my email client. Clicking “junk” is a fairly easy step to let the server bots know “yeah, I do not want this.” Then the magical spiders will remember… next time. Odds are that a very large portion of your spam in email is already filtered for you. I don’t pay much attention to my spam box unless I am expecting something and it isn’t showing. Y’know, like the password reset I requested for the ga-zillionth time since I could not remember the 10 characters with 1 special, 1 upper, no words, never a user variation, and cannot be rememberable requirements. And oh yeah, while you agreed to stay logged in, the app decided to ask you again one day. [Enter your password to resume]. Oh, and of course, keychain (or the other handicap tools I need) decided it wasn’t going to save that one. You know what I mean.

The volume of mail in America has drastically changed in recent years. Lots of things going on there. (I will defer to my USPS carrier friends for the details.) From my perspective mail volume has decreased since I was a child. Or perhaps it hasn’t. Maybe it is just proportioned differently in my adult mind. Sort of like when you walk through your elementary school for the first time after leaving a decade ago. The ceilings almost in arms reach and the halls feel about as wide as your own home’s paths. Yet, I don’t think that is what’s happening here. Email has changed a lot of the messaging techniques that we use. From surveys to business reply mail, most can be sent via a computer or server. And while the US is not as active in metering the internet like some other countries, the public doesn’t have many reasons to choose snail vs. email. Aside from internet provider costs, which you would have regardless if you wanted the net, email it is free. It is also a hell of a lot easier to track, send, receive, etc.

Mail today though, has lost its meaning. The letters cease and the mailbox is filled with items that not many people really want. Spam. That excitement of opening the mailbox and thinking you were thought of… Well, you were… but… bill, coupons, coupons, bill, and a letter!?!?! No wait, it’s a business reply letter. And a whoosh flows through you as the instant joy is sucked out of you. It is time to do something different. It is time to take back the mailbox. Gameface on. What-to-do? Like anything we set out to do, we need a plan. A well documented or easily studied and learned set of tasks to complete the job. In this case, we are going to send a message back to the sender. Literally. We are going to let them know that we dislike receiving crap in the mail.

The Plan.

Step 1 – Sort all of your mail into piles with the main categories as personal mail, bills, business reply advertisements (contain a no postage needed reply option) and coupons or ads and other spam mail. So four piles.
Step 2 – Open all forms of advertisements or mail labeled by you as spam.
Step 3 – Pull out all “no postage necessary” envelopes that you received. (Or get into your saved collection of the “no postage…”). NPN for short.
Step 4 – Carefully open a NPN envelop.
Step 5 – Stuff all other junk mail into the envelope.
Step 6 – Once full, seal the envelope carefully. Tape the seals if you need to. We don’t want to lose any of the goodness or damage our golden ticket.
Step 7 – Prepare the mail to be sent. Properly store any leftover NPN envelopes.
Step 8 – Mail the letter(s). Sit back and smile.

Simple task really. If we all did this, we would double the costs of that business’s spam marketing budget. Please share if you agree! Let’s get the message out to everyone. The first 100 shares will automatically… get my thanks. I had several serious entries in a row. I wanted to be a little more lighthearted today. But, on a serious note… I really do this with my spam mail.

Glad you stopped by today to read this. Sincerely, thank you for being you.

Best – Joe