My mom conquered the mail pile up when she was home with us as little kids. She opened everything as she walked through the front door, tossed what was junk and filed what needed to be kept. I tried this when we first moved in, but B usually gets the mail before I get home and the pile up happened.
So I'm wondering - how do you handle the daily mail? Do you let it pile up or are you an attacker? Do you attack it daily, weekly, etc. What do you do with the things you keep? Sound off!
Dude, at our old house, our mailbox was in the center of the development so we'd let mail pile up for weeeeeks. It was terrible.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm an attacker. Junk mail gets thrown out. Coupons go in the coupon drawer. Things to file away go in a pile. After about 2 weeks or so, that pile gets taken to the office and filed. It seems to work nicely.
I do what your mom does, and purge all junk immediately. I then have an ongoing pile in a separate room near my filing cabinet for things that need to be filed, and a file-box for my bills to go until they're scheduled to be paid (which is usually right around the time they arrive)
ReplyDelete(I wrote about my 'system' in my other blog at
http://dollard.wordpress.com/page/2/).
What makes me nuts are magazines that will never be read and are waiting until they get tossed two months from now when I lose it!
I sort the mail as it enters the house. Junk into the trash, and I have two seperate cubbies (for lack of a better term) on my desk, one for things to file, and one for bills to be paid.
ReplyDeleteI try to go through the mail as soon as I get home, but sometimes my husband brings it in and then I lose motivation. I make 2 piles, recycle and file (and sometimes a 3rd of mail that doesn't belong to us). Recycle pile gets tossed in the recycle bag and the file pile gets shoved into a "to-file" file that stays on our counter. I'm horrible about actually filing though and only do it about every 2-3 months.
ReplyDeleteI am always the one who gets the mail. I go threw it and get rid of the junk, take the bills downstairs and fill in my household binder. the coupons go in my office, and set aside anything my husband has to look at.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty good at opening the mail immediately. I throw away the junk and even try to set up bill pay for the bills the same day we receive them. However, once the bill has been paid and the mail sorted it ends up in limbo. It goes to the spare room/office and sits in piles until we get sick of all the piles and finally file the piles. Some day ...
ReplyDeleteI attack it daily. I LOVE throwing things away!
ReplyDeletei'm lucky if we get the mail more than once a week. we did cancel all of our paper bills so it's not often that it's something important.
ReplyDeleteOh, I attack it. Torsten tends to just toss it in a pile somewhere obscure and then I am wondering why things I was expecting haven't shown up, so now I am officially In Charge of the mail and he doesn't touch it. I can't imagine not dealing with the mail right away. So much interesting stuff shows up... refund checks and notices of new annual fees on credit cards and health insurance statements and Christmas cards. I HEART the mail, even when it's bad news. It's just so USEFUL.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sad with my mail..I bring it to work and sort it here. I know sad :( But I feel thats the only time I have...so basicly it hangs around in my purse:)
ReplyDeleteI stand by the trash can!! I throw away anything I do not need, hang up cards on my magnetic kitchen board, and write the checks for the bills, stamp them, and throw them back in the box. I tried having a basket for bills, and almost was late paying one, so NEVER AGAIN!
ReplyDeleteI usually sort all mail as it comes in. The problem I have is getting my husband to put away/throw away/file his portion and my daughters to do the same. Now that college is looming for my oldest she gets 2-3 college letters per day these days. And, of course, she leaves them all on the kitchen counter!
ReplyDeleteWe actually get very little mail. Most of our bills are paid online, through our bank, so we've opted out of paper statements. We get two bills that need paying a month, and those stay on the desk in the dining room until they're paid. I'm trying to get better about RSVP-ing to invitations. It's hard to know with my husband's travel, but I recently got a tip to go ahead and respond yes, and people are generally understanding if something comes up at the last minute. So to sum up, I take care of junk mail right away, pay bills soon thereafter, and try to RSVP right away. :-)
ReplyDeleteI try to sort it as it comes in, but then I just end up with multiple piles instead of just one :) I do open all the bills immediately and they go in a clip on the fridge in order of due date (soonest on top). That has worked well, but I've got to come up with something better for the rest of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty anal about the mail, I sort it immediately and throw the junk away. I take the rest and sort accordingly. Bills go into the slot where open bills go, and then when I pay them they move to the appropriate file for paid bills. Easy peasy!
ReplyDeleteThis is so my weakness. Honestly, I still have BOXES of mail in the garage from before we moved into our house that I need to file or shred. It's disgusting.
ReplyDeleteI throw out junk immediately. I hate mail on our counters. We just don't have enough counter space to have a basket or a sorting system. If Ryan gets the mail, it sits on the counter until I get home to immediately destroy.
ReplyDeleteI think this is one thing that I definitely inherited from my mother. Scary. =)
I like to daily with it daily, but I have similar problems as you. John gets the mail before, but he can never put it in the same spot (much the less the place I've designated as the "mail spot")- sometimes I'll find it on the dinning room table, other times the kitchen counter or couch etc. I tackle it as soon as I find it but I have no good system of keeping important papers.
ReplyDeleteUgh, I'm so bad with mail. I toss the junk immediately... well, if you consider within a day or two immediately ;) My problem is filing filled with piles of mail. When you figure out a mail filing system, please share!
ReplyDeleteWow... I think I left out an entire sentence. Should read "My problem is filing the important stuff... Our office if filled with piles of mail" Oops :)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI used to let it pile, but I have been focusing on my organization and have been attacking it lately. It is so much easier, but I would love someplace like above to keep it before it gets completely attacked. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Emily, our mail is all over the place, it's horrible. The junk is tossed immediatley but everything else seems to hang around on our kitchen counter in a stack. The bills go upstairs to our "bill backet" in our bedroom and the other random stuff that we can't throw out or haven't used yet like retail coupons, church envelopes, etc, get put in a basket in the pantry. I usually sort through this basket once a month and toss what we don't need. The basket in the pantry annoys me because I don't know where else to put it. It's a "catch all" and it drives me nuts. I have looked for a better system but nothing seems to work for now. Good post, I am sure these are issues for most people!!!
ReplyDeleteKaren