What to do with Your Junk Mail

Who out there is a catalog junkie?  Do they pile up on your end table, basket by the couch or do they immediately go into the trash bin without another thought?  Or is it the idea you like to look through them and you want to spend some time looking just in case there could be that particular item you may need or want?

Not too many people are immune to receiving these junk mail catalogs.  When they are at the highest stack is on the soon to be arrival of Christmas.  We tend to get way too many of them at that point and many of us wish we wouldn't even be bothered by them.

I'm trying to remember some of the ones I used to always receive in the mail.  I used to get tons of them when I was married and I think I was buying more things in catalogs for the kids and sometimes myself.

We would get Signals, L.L. Bean, Lands End, Entertainment Earth, Ginny's, Country Door, and on and on.

The ones which are probably coming in your mail boxes now are the gardening catalogs.  I'm getting some of those which of course all of them get thrown out immediately as I have no place to garden.  That's the drawback of living in rented places as there's often lots of rules.

L.L. Bean and a few other's I still get.  Most of the time I find myself just throwing them out.  Hey, if you know you don't want to buy anything out of a catalog, why bother to leaf through them.  It's your valuable time wasted and why would you want to sink your money into them?

Once in a great while though you can find your perfect item in a catalog and it's kind of fun to receive something in the mail.  One of my favorite catalogs used to be this Victorian Papers catalog.  That one was pretty neat.  I once had my ex get me this pretty Louisa Alcott reproduction blouse, which finally didn't fit me anymore and I ended up selling it on Ebay.

Lots of people spend lots of time looking through catalogs.  I know I used to be one of those people.  It was kind of fun to leaf through and see the crazy things people might buy.

Ever look through one of those old time treasures catalogs or a joke one?  There was usually some crazy things in there.  Or never mind, I was trying to remember another kind of fun one.  Of course there's all the kids catalogs too for clothing, toys, etc....

Any catalog for any item is out there and you need to be careful because once you get on their mailing list, you will end up getting their catalogs for the next five to ten years in their hopes of sucking you in again.

There's just way too many of them.

You know you are a catalog junkie when you can create your own end table out of them!  There's a crafty idea for someone.  Maybe you could create two stacks on each side and then nail a board to them and you've got your Catalog coffee table.  Something to ponder, huh?

It would take a while for me to do that now as I don't get as many catalogs in the mail now.  Recycle them in with your recycling instead of throwing them into the dumpster.  Save the earth!

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted April 4, 2013