I've been saying for a long time now that I'd pay the post office to deliver mail less frequently to my house, if I could just subscribe to some once-a-week delivery service for $48/year, it would be totally worth it. Nothing urgent, valuable or time-sensitive comes in the mail. That's what email is for. Of course, I'd still like to get packages.
Processing all the junk mail, obscuring our name and address, sorting, recycling, it's a pain and takes time. I've tried just letting it pile up on the counter, but that's not without its own annoyances.
I've found a compromise. Through the USPS' website, you can - for free - do short-term mail holds. I tried one a few weeks ago. It was confusing...
* Starts On should be the day they start holding, right? They still delivered mail that day.
* Ends On - is that the last day they hold mail, or the first day they start delivering normally again? Not quite sure.
* I still got the daily emails telling me what mail was queued
* We got at least one notice from Amazon saying that a package couldn't be delivered (though it ultimately way)
* We got a notice from the post office saying we needed to come to the post office to pick up a package (we didn't; it was delivered)
I've also started unsubscribing from mail at the source where possible (a local realtor was really confused about us demanding to stop receiving his newsprint newsletter) and refusing obvious junk mail. (No, SiriusXM, the 14th offer you send won't be the one that gets us to sign up.)
But just having the mail delivered less often is great. It doesn't clutter up the house and we're still able to dispatch it to the recycling bin quickly. It does mean regularly going to their website to start a new mail hold and it does mean to expect some packages won't arrive as quickly as expected, but it's just one less source of incoming clutter.
And that makes me happy.
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