Tackling the Mail

Anyone else hate mail? I've always struggled with it. Before, when we were living in an apartment, I left the mail in its box for about 4 days or so before going to get it. Now that we are in a house, with the mailbox by the street, I get it daily, in fear of people stealing it (you never know!).

I created a mail bin, but what ended up happening was I would just throw it in the bin and forget about it. Before tossing it in there I would look through the mail to see if anything was important, and put that to the side. But WEEKS would even go by (do I even dare to admit months?) I used to use a shredder which is what slowed down the process. I had to keep the shredder hidden due to curious little ones. So then I would have to pull it out, go in a place where my little one won't follow me (usually the bathroom if I close the door) and shred stuff. Because I didn't want to do this every day, I would wait until I had a pile. Well, if you are familiar with shredders, they fill up fast and can overheat after too much use. So then I would cut out all the things I wanted to shred...which took time....which led me to PROCRASTINATE.

Then one day, it happened. The shredder broke. And a bright idea occurred to me. When we first moved in, hubby built a make do fire pit in our backyard. We live in a rural area where everyone likes to BURN stuff. So I decided, instead of getting a new shredder, we could just light that stuff on fire. And I have been forever changed! lol!

I now have a mail system that I love. I'll share it with you...you may not like mine or do something like me, and that, of course, is fine. There are a ton of other ways to do it...just google it! lol.

I have 3 (not sure the technical name) shelves that are wall mounted for files (similar to the things on the front of the doctor's doors that they store your file in.) They are labeled, "Bills," "Flyers," and "To-Do."

Bills - well...bills go in there...enough said

Flyers - I use this to store the current flyers I get in the mail/paper and also any store coupons (like bed, bath and beyond, etc). If I definitely will be using the coupons, I put them in my purse.

To-Do - You know those papers that you can't quite file away because you're going to need them again? I put them in here. If I need to call someone, it goes in there. Stuff like that. Here's a pic:

Then I have my mail bin and my burn bin. Now you'll notice that the other one isn't labeled (that's the burn one). That is because my 2 year old peeled it off and ATE IT!

I'm serious!

I'm raising a termite! lol!

Well he didn't exactly EAT it. He sucked on it until it became a giant spitball and threw it on the ceiling! Yup! My 2 year old has discovered spitballs. I thought I had to wait until he was in high school...but apparently not. lol

Now I try to keep the Mail bin empty, and lately I have been. But let's say hubby comes home with paperwork I have to file, and I don't want to put it away just yet, I toss it in there. At least I know where it is.

Those 2 bins are sitting on top of our old TV stand that we used to use in our bedroom. Now we keep our magazines and catalogs on the inner shelf and our CD/DVD disk holder thingees underneath.

So now when I go and get the mail - I look through it..toss the junk in the burn bin, put the bills in the bill slot, open up anything else and decide if it's junk, a bill I didn't recognize from the outside, or something I have to do later. If I have to file it away, I try to do it then, but if I can't for whatever reason, I toss it in the mail bin and get to it later.

So...how do you organize your mail?