Five Minute Friday: Eliminate the Credit Offers

I thought I'd start up a little series where every other Friday I'll offer up a suggestion of something simple you can do in five minutes to help de-clutter your life.  Hence the name: Five-Minute Fridays!

Today's suggestion comes courtesy of my local Better Business Bureau.  If you recall, I took advantage of their Free Shred Day in April as part of my filing cabinet project.  Before I dropped off my papers, they handed me a "goody bag" that had some various information.  I flipped through it when I got home, and found a handy list of some useful websites.

One of those websites is www.optoutprescreen.com.  This website will remove you from those annoying pre-approved credit offers that seem to show up all too often in the mail.  I've always found these particularly annoying.  I don't request them.  I don't read them.  I don't want them.  Yet I have to spend the time to properly dispose of them.  (For me, this means shredding any contents with my information and recycling the envelope and random inserts.)  Sure, this doesn't really take that long in the grand scheme of things, but why should I have to invest my time dealing with something that I don't want?

So, in less than five minutes, you can go to the website and opt-out of those credit offers.  There are three options:

1. Opt In (in case you haven't been receiving these and for some reason, want them)
2. 5-Year Electronic Opt Out
3. Permanent Mail Opt Out

I chose the permanent option.  I filled out my name and address (FYI - it won't force you to put it any additional information), and submitted the form.  In the first paragraph of the page afterward, it gives a link to print a confirmation and the permanent mail form.  Just print, sign, put in an envelope, slap on a stamp, and pop it in the mail.

And in less than five minutes, you can be free of these useless pieces of mail (forever)!  How easy is that?