you’ll never accidentally fall behind on a bill again and you’ll never be caught up in a clutter of unhandled mail. Bonus tip: Start a filing system for your papers when you start a “mail basket” and handle all filing each week when you go through the basket. That way, you’ll always be able to find important papers that may be costly to replace.
111. G O T HROUGH THE “C LUTTER A TTRACTORS ” R EGULARLY
Every home has a few “clutter attractors,” spaces where things seem to clutter over time. Like the catch-all drawer, the table near the front door where you toss your keys after a day at work, the bedside table, and the downstairs closet. These places almost always wind up catching little important things, things that you should have acted on, like bill statements or checks to be cashed, and sometimes these things can be forgotten in our busy lives. The remedy for this is to check those clutter-attracting areas regularly. Go through the items you find there and see if there isn’t anything important you may have missed. This can easily end up saving you money if you discover a bill that needs paying or a check that needs cashing or a rebate form that needs filling out.
112. R EAD Y OUR F AVORITE N EWSPAPER O NLINE
If you get a newspaper delivered every day, consider canceling the subscription and reading it online. Not only does this directly save you money by cutting out the cost of subscribing, but it also cuts down on the clutter in your home and the amount of trash you have to throw away. Many newspapers earn significant revenue from their websites today, so don’t worry about hurting the newspaper’s bottom line if you unsubscribe and replace it with regular viewings of the newspaper’s site.
113. U NSUBSCRIBE F ROM C ATALOGS
Catalogs are just collections of temptations. A catalog in the mail will do nothing more than encourage you to buy things that you wouldn’t have otherwise purchased, and an unnecessary purchase is the mortal enemy of living cheap. Unsubscribe from any catalogs that you receive by calling the number in the catalog and requesting removal from their mailing list. Not only will this save you money, but it’s also a useful way to reduce the amount of clutter that your house catches.
114. U NSUBSCRIBE F ROM C HARITY M AILINGS
Another effective method of reducing temptation in the mail is to unsubscribe from charity mailings, particularly those that you do not intend to pledge to in the future. Call their number and ask them to stop their mailings to you, informing them that you’ll be planning your charitable giving on a regular basis and will send them gifts of your choosing without the mailings. Giving to charity is a powerful thing, but it’s something that’s worth the time to carefully plan and budget for, not write out an unplanned and unbudgeted check on a whim. Not only does this reduce the costs for that charity, since they’re no longer sending out wasteful mail, but it reduces your clutter and also reduces the chance that you’ll send out a check without giving it the thought that charity deserves. Instead, plan your charitable giving well in advance and focus your gifts on charities that really matter to you, not on the charity that happens to send you something in the mail that week.
115. S IGN U P FOR THE D O N OT M AIL R EGISTRY AND THE D O N OT C ALL R EGISTRY
Another effective way to simultaneously reduce clutter and also reduce the potential temptation of direct marketers is to sign up for the national Do Not Call registry, which informs telemarketers that you do not wish to be contacted by telephone regarding their direct marketing efforts. Visit www.donotcall.gov to get started. Similarly, there is an ongoing push for a Do Not Mail registry, which you can find out more about at http://donotmail.org . At that site, you can sign a petition to enact a national Do Not Mail registry, plus request that participating direct mailers no longer send junk mail
111. G O T HROUGH THE “C LUTTER A TTRACTORS ” R EGULARLY
Every home has a few “clutter attractors,” spaces where things seem to clutter over time. Like the catch-all drawer, the table near the front door where you toss your keys after a day at work, the bedside table, and the downstairs closet. These places almost always wind up catching little important things, things that you should have acted on, like bill statements or checks to be cashed, and sometimes these things can be forgotten in our busy lives. The remedy for this is to check those clutter-attracting areas regularly. Go through the items you find there and see if there isn’t anything important you may have missed. This can easily end up saving you money if you discover a bill that needs paying or a check that needs cashing or a rebate form that needs filling out.
112. R EAD Y OUR F AVORITE N EWSPAPER O NLINE
If you get a newspaper delivered every day, consider canceling the subscription and reading it online. Not only does this directly save you money by cutting out the cost of subscribing, but it also cuts down on the clutter in your home and the amount of trash you have to throw away. Many newspapers earn significant revenue from their websites today, so don’t worry about hurting the newspaper’s bottom line if you unsubscribe and replace it with regular viewings of the newspaper’s site.
113. U NSUBSCRIBE F ROM C ATALOGS
Catalogs are just collections of temptations. A catalog in the mail will do nothing more than encourage you to buy things that you wouldn’t have otherwise purchased, and an unnecessary purchase is the mortal enemy of living cheap. Unsubscribe from any catalogs that you receive by calling the number in the catalog and requesting removal from their mailing list. Not only will this save you money, but it’s also a useful way to reduce the amount of clutter that your house catches.
114. U NSUBSCRIBE F ROM C HARITY M AILINGS
Another effective method of reducing temptation in the mail is to unsubscribe from charity mailings, particularly those that you do not intend to pledge to in the future. Call their number and ask them to stop their mailings to you, informing them that you’ll be planning your charitable giving on a regular basis and will send them gifts of your choosing without the mailings. Giving to charity is a powerful thing, but it’s something that’s worth the time to carefully plan and budget for, not write out an unplanned and unbudgeted check on a whim. Not only does this reduce the costs for that charity, since they’re no longer sending out wasteful mail, but it reduces your clutter and also reduces the chance that you’ll send out a check without giving it the thought that charity deserves. Instead, plan your charitable giving well in advance and focus your gifts on charities that really matter to you, not on the charity that happens to send you something in the mail that week.
115. S IGN U P FOR THE D O N OT M AIL R EGISTRY AND THE D O N OT C ALL R EGISTRY
Another effective way to simultaneously reduce clutter and also reduce the potential temptation of direct marketers is to sign up for the national Do Not Call registry, which informs telemarketers that you do not wish to be contacted by telephone regarding their direct marketing efforts. Visit www.donotcall.gov to get started. Similarly, there is an ongoing push for a Do Not Mail registry, which you can find out more about at http://donotmail.org . At that site, you can sign a petition to enact a national Do Not Mail registry, plus request that participating direct mailers no longer send junk mail
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