Junk mail is one of those forms of clutter that keeps coming back no matter how many times you deal with it. You sort through the mail, toss the catalogs and advertisements into the recycling bin, and a few days later there’s another stack waiting for you.
But instead of constantly decluttering the same paper, it may be easier to stop some of it before it ever reaches your mailbox. No single magic button eliminates every piece of unwanted mail, but several services can significantly cut down what you receive.
Here are four places to start.
Register with DMAchoice
If most of the unwanted mail you’re getting consists of catalogs, magazine offers, donation requests and other promotional mail, DMAchoice is a good place to start.
The Association of National Advertisers operates the service, which lets consumers reduce promotional mail from companies and organizations they don’t already have a business relationship with. Registration currently costs $8 online and lasts for 10 years.
This won’t eliminate everything. Bills, statements, mail from businesses you already have a relationship with, prescreened credit offers, and mail addressed to “Current Resident” aren’t covered by DMAchoice.
Opt out of prescreened credit and insurance offers
Those seemingly endless credit card and insurance offers require a different opt-out.
The Federal Trade Commission recommends using OptOutPrescreen, which the major credit bureaus operate. You can opt out of prescreened credit and insurance offers for five years online or by phone, or begin the process of opting out permanently.
The FTC notes that opting out won’t stop every credit or insurance advertisement because some companies get their mailing lists from other sources. It can, however, stop the prescreened offers generated using information from the major credit bureaus.
Cancel the catalogs you don’t want
Sometimes the problem isn’t general advertising mail. It’s those same catalogs that continue showing up month after month even though you haven’t ordered anything from them in years.
Catalog Choice is a nonprofit service that lets you search for individual companies and request that they stop sending specific catalogs and other unwanted mail. You can even use it for mail addressed to a previous resident or someone who has died.
This isn’t an instant fix, either. Catalog Choice says it can take six to eight weeks after an opt-out request is processed for mailings from a particular company to stop, and not every company is required to honor a request.
Related: 15 Important Documents You Should Never Throw away
Go directly to the companies that keep mailing you
There will probably still be a few stubborn mailers left after using broader opt-out services. That’s when it makes sense to go straight to the source.
Look at the company sending the mail and search its website for mailing preferences, privacy settings, or an opt-out option. The U.S. Postal Service notes that customers who don’t want unsolicited promotional material can contact the mailer or manufacturer and ask to be removed from its mailing list.
This can be particularly useful for companies you’ve purchased from before because mail from businesses with an existing customer relationship isn’t necessarily covered by services such as DMAchoice.
The goal isn’t necessarily an empty mailbox
Unfortunately, no single service can currently stop every piece of junk mail. Some local advertising is delivered to entire neighborhoods rather than to individual names, and other mail may come from organizations that don’t participate in the major opt-out programs.
But even cutting out the catalogs, promotional offers and prescreened credit mail can mean considerably less paper entering the house in the first place.
