How to Reduce Junk Mail

"Everybody" hates junk mail (here referring to snail mail), however, direct mail is very effective as a marketing technique. To get less direct mail, you will have to make yourself seem less attractive.

	Avoid getting on mailing lists in the first place. Most of the time when you register for a contest or sweepstakes, they are just collecting names and information for marketing. When you do such a thing, you are basically saying that you want them to send you marketing. Therefore, consider carefully what you are signing up for. Look at their odds of winning anything good. It's probably not even enough to justify the amount of time filling out the form.
	If you must, for some reason, fill out such a form and they ask for irrelevant information such as your income or what kind of car you drive, don't feel obligated to tell them your real income or car since it's none of their business. If you say you make $5000-$10,000/year and that you drive a Yugo, they probably won't know what to do with you.
	When you get mailings with postage paid return envelopes (such as credit card offers), write in big letters on the form "Remove Me From Mailing List" and just to be safe "Void" (in case they decide to send you their product nonetheless.). You can be nice like that the first time. The second time, do the same thing but fill the envelope with scrap paper making the envelope as heavy as you can. The receiving company will have to pay for the increased postage and will realize that you are just wasting their time, so they will be more likely to remove you from the list.
	Just for fun, if you do give someone your name and address for some reason, use a fake middle initial for tracking purposes. For example, you might use the initial "J" (assuming that's not your real middle initial), and then whenever you get something with a J, you know how they got your address. This way you can watch the spread of junk.

• Some junk mail just can't be avoided. For example, one local advertising company sends a coupon book to everyone in my region via 35th class mail and everyone gets it.