Be Brave Not Safe

I wonder what would happen if I grabbed my chainsaw and cut our mailbox off the post?

Other than my neighbors thinking I’m a bit whacky, I would simply be left with the nice post (I’d refinish the top, of course) indicating my house number on our street. Would that be so bad? I wonder what I’d miss? Certainly not “most” of my bills, as they arrive in email.

When we cut the landline telephone years ago the biggest benefit we realized was telemarketers could no longer reach us.

Back to snail mail…”Most” of what we receive in our daily mail is pure junk that goes straight to the recycle bin. Nothing new, really. So, what prompted me to write this post?

My oldest son, who is attending college in Boston, received his weekly letter from a State Farm Agent promising to cut his auto insurance bill if he’d switch to her firm. I had had enough 🙂

So, on behalf of my son (who I confirmed was ok with this) I found her website and sent her an email as follows:

And, I provided his name so that she’d know who to remove from her database.

Just Say NO! – To Paper.

Why not, kill the mailbox!

Why am I “lit up” about this? A few reasons:

• As stated in the note ghost written for my son:
  • I acquire things more based on a recommendation from friends, an unbiased 3rd-party (about how awesome the firm is), or my own experience and research rather than as a result of a piece of paper arriving in my mailbox.
  • We are killing trees for no apparent reason.
• The USPS has been running in the red. That means it is not “self-sustaining.” If it was a business it would have gone bankrupt. Because it is a government entity it gets funding from sources other than its revenue. From who, ultimately? You and me (via our tax dollars)!

An idea? How about making it more painful (costly) to send paper. What if the price of a stamp was $1.00? People would think twice before sending junk. And, if there is a need to send a nice note to someone – USE EMAIL!

I was mentioning this to a friend who responded with “What about all the postal workers? What would they do?”

You probably know my answer: “They would find ANOTHER job!”

What happens to everyone else when an industry goes obsolete (think vinyl records and carburetors)? We move on! The next question would be: Who will deliver stuff to people without email? The USPS (a downsized version) could still fill that void. And, we also have UPS and Fedex for packages. So, we’d be ok…

Here are steps I plan on taking:

• If I personally know the service provider (my dentist, for example) I’ll talk to them on my next visit and ask them to send our bills and appointment reminders via email. I’ll bet other customers of theirs would “opt-in” resulting in the service provider saving time and money!
• If it is junk mail (coupon, catalog, flyer) from a large / well known company I’ll visit Catalog Choice (as discussed in my prior post) and request that I be removed from their mailing list.
• If it is not one of the above I will:
  • Find a way to contact them to ask them to stop sending me paper.
  • If that doesn’t work, I’ll write “Refused” on the letter (or whatever), put an X through my address and drop it back in a corner USPS mailbox.

In closing, I plan on having some fun with this. I’ll report back in the future to provide an update on how things are going.

Hope you enjoy your day. Go paperless!