Week #10: Mail

I totally forgot to do last week's challenge in The 52-Week Organized Home Challenge.  Oops!  Last week's challenge was to Create a Home Mail Organization Center.

After Week #1's challenge of decluttering counter tops, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on sorting, handling & organizing mail.  

This is what my mail pile looks like on most days.  Yes, I get way to much  mail. 

Right away, I go through the stack.  Magazines in one pile, trash/to be shredded in another, & bills in another.  I put the magazines (People, Shape & Fitness) away, usually near the elliptical as I like to read them when I work out.  I then shred what needs to be shredded or throw away the trash mail.  In this pile is the weekly grocery store fliers, so I put those away in my coupon binder.  And finally, I go & pay the bills.  Right away.  If I keep them on the counter, they either a) clutter up the counter tops or b) I end up being late paying them.  

This process not only keeps paying bills up to date but also keeps my counters free of clutter.  Of course some days I'm not always on top of my mail, but most days I am.

One thing that I really need to work on is the junk mail.  In this pile is a birthday magazine (Birthday Express), a Nordstrom one as well as some fancy children's clothing magazine.  I think I've ordered from the first two magazines before, but not the last one.  I have no idea how they got my information.

This challenge has an entire page on how to stop junk mail!  I've been reading over it & am totally going to follow their plan on stopping junk mail.  I cannot tell you how many pre-approved credit card & mortgage offers that I receive in the mail, not to mention catalogs that I wrote about earlier.  On this page, they give you all of the necessary steps to eliminate the junk that comes in your mail.  This week I am going to work on this part of the challenge.

It's time to stop the JUNK MAIL!!!

Next Challenge: Organize Bills