We used to enjoy the arrival of glossy catalogs from places like Pottery Barn and Garnet Hill -- until we started getting them every month, as though they were magazines.
Now we regard them as a nuisance, since most of them go straight to recycling without ever being opened.
Sharon Beaulaurier of Greenlight Magazine (which is a digital publication) has some good tips about how to control the deluge without cutting yourself off from solicitations you are actually interested in receiving. A tip that was new to us was making sure to check the temporary address change box on the Postal Service's official moving card instead of the permanent one, since the latter puts you on a list that's for sale.
Check out her article here.
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Or use greendimes.com to cut your junk mail--they will stop unwanted catalogues too!
We have this problem at work...when we moved offices we ordered furniture online and ever since have been deluged with catalogues. Just yesterday, we received 3 of the same Pottery Barn catalogue and that was the last straw. I called customer service and found out that they will take you off their mailing list no questions asked! I spent this morning doing that for most other catalogues that we get and found it to be a fairly pleasant experience.
I loathe Pottery Barn, and they are the worst offender for sending unwanted catalogues. I would never shop there (just not my taste at all) but they keep adding me to their list! Over the years, I've unsubcribed at least 5 times!
==> The catch?
I shop at West Elm, who's catalogues I do want. But when you buy something at West Elm, you are automatically subscribed to Pottery Barn's catalague. (Pottery Barn explained it to me recently, when I unsubcribed again.)
There was an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer was angry at all of the Pottery Barn catalogs he kept receiving, so he saved them all up and went to a Pottery Barn store, opened the door and threw them all inside. Ha!!
Yeah when we got four Pottery Barn catalogs (Me, Girlfriend, Former Tenant, Former Tenant's Wife) my girlfriend just started calling the companies and telling them each name to stop sending to the address. It works.
Funny that I would have never taken that approach but 2 months later we were only getting single copies of catalogs we actually care to look through.
Yeah, don't ever get married if you do not want a deluge of cataloges. God lord. It drives me crazy.
Also, for some reason, I get catalogs addressed to my mom at my house. Like J.Jill. I'm 26. I don't shop at J.Jill. I don't get it, we have similar names, but seriously.
Oh, P.S. If you get loads of credit card applications in the mail, most of them have a slip in there with an 800 number that you can call to have your name removed from the list that all those companies use. I haven't gotten an application in the mail for probably 3 months. I used to get about 3 a day.