Along the decluttering thread how do you organize your mail?

[egoldber]

How do people deal with mail? DH and I have ALWAYS had a problem with mail. We end with HUGE piles of mail and end up filling all available horizontal surfaces with mail until I finally get sick of it.

I am embarrassed to say we spent a SIGNIFICANT portion of this weekend going through TWO YEARS worth of old bills and investment paperwork that had been dealt with (i.e., paid or Quicken-ed) but never filed. We are struggling to develop a mail system. You would think that two well educated adults would have no problem with this, but alas....

[COElizabeth]

Our system is far from perfect, but here is what we do:

First, I handle all the household "business" - taxes, bills, insurance, etc. So I take charge of all mail related to that. I usually sort the mail over the trash can and throw out immediately any unwanted flyers, catalogs, etc. I put catalogs I might want to look through into the magazine basket by the tv.

In my kitchen I have three stacking trays - one for DH's mail, one for mine, and one for the bills and other stuff that has a response deadline. I go through the last one regularly. The others can get kind of overfilled, especially since DH's always seems to end up with not just mail but also ham radio pieces, bike gadgets, etc.! But that is our general system.

Also, I save credit card receipts and things like receipts from insured mail in a folder in my file cabinet called "pending receipts." When I get my credit card bill I match the receipts up and then throw them away (after tearing them up). I used to save credit card statements but don't anymore unless there is something like a tax-deductible gift on them (in which case I put it into the "current year tax" folder in the same file cabinet). I love my file cabinet! DH, by the way, has his own file cabinet which I organized for him, but I don't let him put anything in there I might need - it's just his magazines, work records, radio manuals, computer game manuals, etc.

I generally have to go through DH's "mailbox" tray myself. He usually has found and taken out what matters to him (i.e. ham radio magazines!) and left everything else. I either throw it out if it's obviously trash (an invitation to a conference that's already been held, for example) or wait and corner him sometime and ask him to go through it or if I can throw it out. Sigh. I hate clutter and can't stand not being able to find something in my house, but it's a constant struggle to keep anything straight with DH, DS, and DDog around. Fortunately they are worth it!

Elizabeth
Mom to James
9-20-02

[chrissyhowie]

Beth, are you sure you aren't talking about my mail LOL?! My dining table is covered with piles of mail all the time! So much so that sometimes I think I have people over for dinner just to kick my butt into gear to put it all away :P!

Elizabeth, I need you to come over to my house and force me to use your system!!! We just moved -- so new start, new household habits to begin! In fact, I'm going to go out right now and get me some trays...

[AngelaS]

I sort and put away the mail as soon as I bring it in (touch it once, ya know!). I open all the mail. If dh gets a birthday card or something, I stick it in his basket where he stores his keys and wallet and such. That way he'll see it when he gets home, read it and throw it away.

Bills go in special spot on my desk. I pay bills on the 25th and 5th of the month and file the stubs in the my file drawer.

Health insurance/investment papers/etc have their own file folders in the drawer and they all immediately go in the right one.

Coupons and such I flip thru, tear out any I may use and they go in a basket on top of the fridge.

[jojo2324]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for saying this! My dining room table is multi-functional: eating surface, laundry holder, mail catcher...My house is a hole full up with bits of paper everywhere, and all of these recent threads about organization and methods and systems has really gotten feeling a bit blue about my life, as in, it's a mess! I am trying to get better about keeping on top of stuff, but it's hard. And Gannon LOVES to play with the paper...:D

[amp]

Don't know if this will be helpful to you or to anyone else, but here is my system...

(I open all of the mail, including DH's mail (he wants me to, or it will sit around forever!).

1 - I open everything in the kitchen and anything that is junk mail (magazine solicitations, flyers, envelopes, inserts in the bills, etc), goes direcly into the trash.

2 - All the stubs that you send with your bills & their respective envelopes go directly onto shelf on the little table where I keep all bills, ATM reciepts and the checkbook for bill paying days (2x/mth when DH gets paid).

3 - The portion of the bills that we keep, I put in a pile in front of filing cabinet. I admit, the stuff that goes in the filing cabinet does sometimes sit in front of said cabinet for a week or so, but then the clutter annoys me and it gets filed. I keep approx. the latest 3 copies of utility bills and bank statements and credit card bills and the rest get shredded so that they don't clutter up my cabinet.

4 - Any credit card offers, stuff with personal info, etc that we don't want go directly to the shredder.

5 - Anything DH needs to look at sits on the kitchen counter for a day or two until he looks at it (sometimes needs some prombpting) and then it goes into the filing cabinet.

6 - Any magazines or catalogs that we want to read go to the living room by the couch for later perusal.

7 - Edited to add that I forgot about coupons. All coupons that I think will use go in a drawer in the kitchen and are paperclipped together (pizza and restaurant coupons together, baby item coupons together, groc. coupons together) so they are easy to find when I need them.

This is the system that works for us, or rather for me, since I am the one who thrives on organization and freaks out at disorganization. :7

[Calmegja]

I have to say that what we do is pretty close to what Angela described. I can't stand clutter. I live to eliminate it, and paper clutter, in particular, makes me feel dizzy, and sends me on the need to clean/organize it immediately. ;-)

1) I bring the mail in and stand over the trash. All catalogues and solicitations, any sort of junk at all go into the trash. I used to keep catalogues, but I realized anywhere that I buy from is online 99% of the time, so that'll have to do. The catalogues were taking up too much space.

2) I gave DH a drawer for his mail. It would be his preference to leave it all on the counter, permanently, then call me from work to ask where something is. Now, the standard answer is, "in your drawer". ;-)

3) I have a desk with hanging files. I have categories for current bills, receipts, automobile, insurance papers, things of that order. I am pretty ruthless, and I use the shredder liberally. If something can be stored online, like banking or credit card statements, I do that, and I take advantage of it. We also do the majority of our bill paying online, and I have several service providers who send me html files of my bills, and I pay online. That works rather nicely, and eliminates further clutter.

I think that's about it. The hardest part has been cutting down on kid paper. I have big accordion files, and we let the kids fill them with all of their treasures. At the end of every six months or so, we let the kids sort out and choose the trhee most important things in their file, and we transfer it to their "permanent record", a big memory box for each child, and then we either send the other stuff onto grandparents, use the pictures as wrapping paper, or otherwise dispose of them.

Anyways, that's how we live out here in, as my Dh affectionately like to refer to it as "obsessive land".... ;-)

[nohomama]

I'm right there with you Joanne! Overall, I'm very organized but my house has these pockets of disaster - our desk, the kitchen counter to the left of the fridge, and the dining room table are areas that immediately come to mind. I feel like getting an email reminder everyday from the Fly Lady ain't gonna cut it in this house. Where is the good witch Esmerelda who can turn all this chaos into order??? And why hasn't she shown up for work, dammit!

[Annette_C]

Jessica,
I would pay anything to be as obsessive as you about clutter!!

Beth,
I'm so glad you posted this question because I have the same problem. My kitchen counter is 50% covered with mail...including magazines (why do I keep renewing them when I know I won't have time to read them?!), catalogs (I shop way too much from catalogs!), bank statements, bills and local newspaper! It drives DH nuts but it doesn't bother me at all!:)
I really don't know where I get this from. My mom is a clean freak! She cleans all the times, even when it's not needed. I'm not this disorganized in other areas, I just get overwhelmed by mail!
Annette
SAHM to Sabrina 6/24/02

[egoldber]

Yes, if I could just figure out how to deal with the mail, my house would be so much less cluttered! Part of the problem is that this does not bother DH in the slightest! Not one little bit! He would happily live in piles of paper, so it is totally up to me to make this work.

I have also been RUTHLESS with myself about magazines. I have stopped subscribing to ALL magazine except one (and I used to get a LOT) and that really helped. Catalogs are another problem, but I do make myself got through them and get rid of the last Christmas' LL Bean catalog, by, oh say, July or so...

For those of you who use stacking bins (which I really had thought of...) which ones do you use? We bought some a few years ago from an organizer store, but they were too small and broke pretty quickly. I have also tried magazine rack like things in the past, to no avail. Again, too small, and it was hard to go through to see what was in there.

[lukkykatt]

Beth, this is a problem that I have too. But I am working on it (just filed some things from when DS was born - 13 months ago!), and there are a couple of things that have helped me.

I got one of those mirror/bin things at Pottery Barn and hung it up next to the front door. When DH brings the mail in, he puts it all there until I can go through it.

I try to work on filing 15 minutes a day now, instead of thinking I'll do it for an hour or two, right after... That has made a HUGE difference.

I eliminate paper wherever possible. I have online banking and bank statements, I use an online bill paying service so all my bills go to them and then they scan them so I can access them on their website, I have our retirement statements emailed to me, etc.

Right now, the biggest pain is that DH is working from home, so I have gotten the boot out of our office. I have no place to call my own, and put things there while I am working on them. We're putting an addition on the house, so hopefully soon... Then I'll try a great filing system like alot of others have suggested.

[houseof3boys]

Great post Beth. It looks like a lot of us are in the same cluttered situation with mail. Here is my 2 cents on what has failed miserably and what is slightly working:

I go through mail right when I get it from the mailbox or DH brings it in so I can throw away all junk mail and crappy catalogues. All bills I take to the computer and pay via billpay and just schedule accordingly when the bill is due. This way I never (okay, not never) miss a bill and get those evil late charges. If it is something for DH I have learned to have him look at it when he gets home and then deal with it then or delegate to me right then and there. If I don't do that, he just starts his own little stack since all of the paper doesn't seem to bother him either (like your DH).

As far as food coupons go, I bought one of those organizers from the dollar store that is designated as just-for-food coupons. This way we have ALL food/restaurant related coupons in one spot and they are semi-organized.

I bought one of the coolest organizers ever from the Container Store and it worked for about a week and then got cluttered up just like the counter!

What's the saying....a cluttered house is a cluttered mind? Yup, I guess that explains it for DH and I and why we seem so disorganized!

We'll have to put that on the list for Neve and her organization idea when she is feeling up to it.

[COElizabeth]

My stacking trays are a gray, fine metal mesh and came from the Container Store. They look like ones you see in offices but are a little nicer looking.

Yes, my DH would happily live in piles of not just paper but soda cans, candy wrappers, and who knows what else. He gets to keep his truck as messy as he likes because he is really the only one in it (my car is the one with the car seat), and the attic he built is also pretty much his territory, as is the garage. So cliched, but oh well.

Another strategy I have employed with some success is containment of other stuff besides mail. We bought an armoire for him so we can shut the doors on his mess of watches, socks, pocket knives, t-shirts, etc. I knew that if he had a dresser, the top of it would be another clutter magnet, so we got a piece of furniture too tall for him to put stuff on! LOL!

Elizabeth
Mom to James
9-20-02

[mharling]

I go through the mail right away and it gets sorted into 5 piles. Garbage, recycle, shred, needs attention and/or filed and things to read. Catalogs go straight to the recycle bin. I buy so much online that I just assume anything in the catalog can also be found online. If it's a new catalog that looks interesting, I just write down the website and toss it. I really pared down magazine subscriptions too.

It sounds like I'm going against the trend, but I have resisted buying organizers. I try to deal with things as quickly as possible and I think an organizer/tray would help me procrastinate since I could toss stuff in there and temporarily forget about it. I think a big key is having an organized file system. When something is ready to be filed, I can do that right away instead of creating piles of things to be filed.

Mary & Lane 4/6/03
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b3237413c427 - New 6/18

[nigele]

:-) I like the armoire idea, Elizabeth.

We converted our formal sitting room into a study for DH and had french doors installed, with sheer curtains. I call these the containment doors as I can shut them when company comes to contain the mess. DH thinks the floor is a filing cabinet. Drives me crazy but I really can't complain as I have a desk in the kitchen which is constantly cluttered with mail, papers, etc. It drives me crazy but I have yet to find a system that works!

[Lori in NJ]

Isn't it amazing how much of a common issue this is for all of us???

I REFUSE to leave anything in the kitchen, my mom did that and it makes me claustrophobic to be around it!!! NO ONE needs to see that stuff! I have a desk in our guest room--there is a small basket on top, when I get a bill I write the day it's due on the outside of the envelope and file it in chronological order by due date (mortgage is up next!) I can tell you I have NEVER paid a late payment or forgotten to pay anything! (Wait till the baby is here, though...)

After paying, I put all of the stubs in the back of the basket and file all at once in a filing cabinet. I take the stubs out of the envelopes (do you have ANY idea how much room those things take up? I threw out 3 bags of them at the beginning of my nesting phase) and file them in ONE envelope (for each bill) and write the date on the front so I make sure they're there. Now I'm on a 1 yr rotation, if it's over a year it GOES! As far as cards, they're in a shoebox in the closet if worth saving, coupons are in an envelope in my kitchen drawers by category (cleaning stuff, toiletries, frozen, etc.).

I keep receipts under the basket and once the cc statements & bank statements come and things match up, they get tossed. For now I have ALL of the receipts for baby stuff in an envelope taped in the baby's closet so I can return the stuff that is of the wrong gender... and now my ? is... WHERE IS THE BABY??????


Control freak

[Calmegja]

Sigh.

It's so nice to be around people like me. Come over here, Lori, and sit by me! LOL!

I feel the organized love.

Now, if only that love could move into the master closet that my DH has destroyed! ;-) Paper clutter, I've got a lock on, It's the clotheshorse 3 outfit a day hubby that's slipped through my fingers!

[Lori in NJ]

Jessica,

Had a good chuckle re the closet... We moved a LOT at the beginning of our relationship and I came up with the philosophy "if you didn't wear it in Chicago, you're not going to wear it in Boston". (We lived in Chicago for 2 years, a good span of time to conquer much of your wardrobe). I created a TOTAL monster!!! The next thing you know my husband was wearing college sweats that were mid-calf & REALLY tight with his tie-dyed skin tight t-shirts excited and yelling "SEE? I am wearing it in Chicago!!!!!!" You should've seen the donation pile after that--I was VERY proud of him!

Doesn't sound like the same issue that you have, but isn't it funny how guys think??? LOL!!!

Lori

[daisymommy]

For those of us organizationally challenged, I just started a Yahoo site for "therapy". I figured we were going to need alot of help, and many-many posts to get our lives under control! We would probably end of taking over the "Lounge" forum. There are no posts yet, so let's get started! Here's the link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/getyourselforganized/

Please post your questions, tips, and ideas. Also, speedy recipes (that can be made when you have been shopping at the mall until 6:00pm, and come home to a starving DH who wonders "What's for dinner?"--no this didn't happen to me yesterday...;)

[egoldber]

Now see, my response to that DH would be "You can call Domino's as easily as I can!" LOL :) And the pizza box with one piece left in it would still be there 2 weeks from now....