Patience

If you know me personally, patient most likely wouldn’t be your adjective of choice to describe me.

But I have been thinking lately about patience and that is mostly because I started a new job that I am very very excited about. I graduated 6 years ago and I have been through 4 jobs since then. Some were good and some were not, but I continued to search, to network, and to interview.

I got rejected A LOT. Since 2012, I have applied for 393 jobs and received 60 first-round interviews. That is a success rate of 15%. It was disheartening and frustrating, but I had to be patient. It was worth the wait.

Patience is also an important trait when dealing with any environmental/waste/green tasks. Our society has pushed instant gratification on us. We use something once and then throw it out. We want something new, we buy it right now and get it shipped to our door the next day.

It seems counterintuitive to go against this, and harder, more difficult, and inconvenient, but it makes a bigger impact.

Take an extra two seconds and collect your kitchen scraps for a compost service.

Search secondhand services for exactly what you are looking for and sell your items on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and ThredUp. Or donate your stuff.

Fix up what you already have whether it is a chair, jeans, or your dress pants,

Collect personal care products and plastic bags, save your beyond repair clothing, take in your running shoes to be recycled, and return wire hangers from the cleaners.

Grow your own vegetables or join a CSA.

Shave with a safety razor.

Take action on things you don’t want like junk mail, mail not addressed you and solicitations.

Choose the slower shipping option.

All of these things take TIME, but I value the outcome more than the time it takes to bring my plastic bags back to the grocery store.

It takes patience to do these things instead of just throwing stuff into the trash can. Sure, that is easier and sure, that is faster.

But properly taking care of what comes in and out of your life is worth the wait.

When You Get Mail for 6 People Who Don’t Live in Your Apartment

Life in the city means people move a lot.

When you move into a new place, you eventually get mail addressed to the previous tenant. Usually, it is just a catalog or a flyer, not a big deal, those can be tossed in the recycling bin (or you can call and remove your address from their mailing list and keep a big spreadsheet of what companies you contacted and when to make sure you don’t ever receive another Soft Surroundings catalog again…but that’s just me).

One way to combat this on your own end is to fill out an official change of address form with the U.S. Postal Service. That will make sure all of your mail gets to you and not the new tenants of your old abode.

Please, spare them from having to do what’s next.

Since being in our new place about 6 weeks, we have received tons of the previous tenant’s mail, and it is not just the person who lived in our unit last. I counted 6 different names on the below pieces of mail.

These important pieces of mail, such as bank and retirement savings, cannot just be tossed in the recycling bin since that is actually a crime, so DON’T DO THAT.

But what do you do if six different people who don’t live in your unit, let alone your building, are getting mail at your address?

First, keep everything, besides the junk flyers or anything addressed to “So and So or Current Resident.” Those can be recycled, or do as I do and keep the Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons. Then, use a permanent marker and write on each piece:

“Return to Sender, Not at This Address”

Now put them back in the mail to be dealt with. So far, I have only received an Architectural Digest back in the mail, so I am going to try again.

See below for some other tips and tricks, such as marking out barcodes, to keep someone else’s mail from crowding your mailbox when all you are looking forward to is a card from your mom.

• Lifehacker: How Can I Stop Getting Mail Addressed to Someone Else?
• Citylab: How to Stop Getting a Previous Tenant’s Mail Over and Over Again
• Business Insider: Throwing away someone else’s mail is a felony — here’s how to get rid of it legally

Persistence: The Key To Getting Rid of Mail You Don’t Want

RedPlum you strike again!

Ugh, I hate walking out my door and every Tuesday this evil red bag is just sitting there, waiting to be tossed directly into the recycling.

This isn’t the first time I have spoken out about RedPlum. Back in January I finally tried to get rid of it once and for all and two months later they are still showing up on my doorstep.

Here is a detailed look at where we are so far:

• January 9: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• January 9: Emailed insideshopper@chicagotribune.com to have our address removed
• January 9: Received automated email response “Thank you for contacting the Chicago Tribune Inside Shopper department – your email is important to us. Please expect a response within 24 hours.”
• January 10: Did not hear back in 24 hours.
• January 11: A Twitter follower suggested using an online form to unsubscribe. I filled out the form.
• January 16: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• January 23: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• January 30: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• February 6: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• February 13: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• February 20: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• February 22: Called the number listed to be removed and was told it would take 2-3 weeks.
• February 27: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• March 6: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• March 13: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• March 20: Received an InsideShopper/RedPlum on my doorstep
• March 20: Called again to be removed and asked if it would take 2-3 weeks, they said no.

And here we are.

Every Tuesday that red bag appears on my doorstep, I make a note of it on my phone.

Hopefully someday soon I will be able to write a blog post about how I successfully got unwanted coupons to stop from showing up at my door.

Fingers crossed.

No, I Don’t Want Your Coupons

Hey Chicagoans,

Have you ever come home to one of these at your doorstep?

The bright red bag of the Chicago Tribune Inside Shopper/RedPlum shows up on our stoop every week, every month, I don’t even know, but it is always there.

Inside are a bunch of coupon circulars for our whole building that no one ever touches. The bag o’ coupons usually sits on the stoop for days or weeks. Maybe it makes it inside into the vestibule, but no one wants it, so no one touches it.

Eventually, the bag of papers disappears. Someone caved and threw it out or maintenance picked it up. I will never know.

The point here is that these coupons are unwanted and they keep coming to be instantly (or many weeks later) tossed in the trash can.

If I am the one to cave and pick it up, I will recycle it, but what about all those other houses out there who immediately throw it into the landfill?

Finally fed up with these things, I actually took a look at that red bag and it said:

“For service inquiries or if you do not want this product delivered to you, please call 1-800-874-2863 or email us at insideshopper@chicagotribune.com.”

Apparently, I could have called long ago to get these to stop, but I just assumed like most of the local mailings, you couldn’t get out of it.

I am not the first one to be pissed off by these stupid red bags of coupons. See here, here, here and here. Someone even sued the Tribune about unwanted delivery even after multiple attempts to be removed.

Anyway, I sent an email off to Inside Shopper, we shall see what happens…

Spammed by Environmental Orgs.

Last year, we donated to Sierra Club post-election.

Which is great and all until you consider how much mail we get from them and now every other environmental organization under the sun (that’s an exaggeration, but it feels like it).

 

Not only do we get constant mail from the Sierra Club, but also the Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, EarthJustice, World Wildlife Fund, and Heifer International.

We have more return address labels than one could possibly use in a lifetime, and plenty of stickers, calendars, and notepads have shown up in our mailbox.

While I support these organizations, I do not support their ridiculous mailing campaigns.

Isn’t it funny that an organization devoted to our environment would waste so much on mailings?

That an organization focused on conserving resources is shoving them into our mailbox?

I have already covered stopping generic junk mail and it is no different with these organizations. I will now be individually contacting each one to ask to be removed from their mailing list, not because I don’t back what they do, but because I don’t want their spam filling up my recycling bin. #Sorrynotsorry

How To: Stop Junk Mail

Getting stuff in the mail is awesome.

Getting unwanted stuff in the mail is not.

 

We all have experienced it. You open the mailbox and find something addressed to you or the current resident (whom you have never heard of) and have no idea why you are getting this piece of mail. You don’t even know what this company is that’s sending you catalogs.

Besides just tossing it in the recycling bin, there are a number of ways you can keep yourself from getting junk mail in the first place.

The biggest thing you can do is avoid giving out your address, but sometimes junk mail will find you anyway.

Below are some resources you can use to be removed from all sorts of mailing lists.

• PaperKarma
• National Do Not Mail List
• DMAchoice.com
• CatalogChoice
• OptOutPrescreen.com (For credit related mailing)

 

Here are some of my requests I submitted to PaperKarma. Who are you King Ranch Saddle Shop?!

 

Another way to combat the onslaught of unwanted mail is to find the sender’s phone number, any number you can find, and call them to remove yourself from the mailing list.

Be warned that it takes over a month sometimes to be officially removed from mailing lists. A lot of the time, a catalog or a mailing is already in production and printed with your name on it before you make the call.

On another note, as much as I love giving money to a good cause such as a charity or non-profit, be careful. Sometimes when you donate, your mailing information can get shared with (or sold to) other organizations. For example, post-election, K donated to an environmental organization and now we get TONS of calendars, address labels (SO MANY), notepads, and more.

If you are looking for more, check out my friend Celia over at Litterless who also wrote a great post on getting rid of junk mail.