Want to reduce your junk mail?

Do you get a lot of catalogs that you don't want or need? Do you feel guilty when you take these volumes of paper directly from your mailbox to your trash can? There is a company that can help! Catalog Choice.

The Catalog Choice service is designed to benefit everyone:

* You benefit by reducing mailbox clutter, and the amount of time you spend sifting through unwanted mail.

* Your participation benefits merchants, lowering their cost of distribution and helping them better target their market.

* Your participation as a member of the Catalog Choice community collectively promotes the use of best practices in the direct mailing industry.

* Your participation as a member of the Catalog Choice community will collectively make a huge positive impact on our environment, as together we reduce the energy consumed, the carbon emissions, and the lost forests resulting from the current annual production and discarding of more than 19 billion paper catalogs.

* Finally, these benefits are cost FREE to you.

The Catalog Choice community is presently 677,665 persons strong, having already opted out of 8,898,279 catalogs. That is a lot of catalogs!!!

I had been getting these huge catalogs from Staples in the mail. I am not sure how we got on their mailing list... maybe by signing up for their rewards card. I felt really wasteful and inconsiderate when I would take this two inch thick "book" and immediately throw it away. Even recycling it seemed careless. I never looked at a single page!

I had good intentions to write or call Staples to be taken off their list, but I never seemed to get around to it. I was relieved when I found Catalog Choice.

All you do is sign up, find the catalogs you want, and opt-out. Easy.

As much as I want to save trees, I also want to save my pocketbook. You don't want what you don't see.

I found myself looking through the Pottery Barn catalog and thinking Boy, I really need that! It was probably a fancy table runner or some cute cloth napkins that I "needed" about as much as I needed the flu. :)

By not browsing, I am not as tempted to buy. This is a win-win situation.