paring down

I know we're all paring down these days- which, surprisingly, I am not minding so much. I've long tried to rid myself of 'unnecessary' things, and one of those things I deemed unnecessary was catalogs. I think I managed to get on just about every catalog's list because I subscribe to a million magazines. My mailbox was overflowing with crap, and I started to feel really guilty about the amount of stuff I was putting in the trash. 

Something I did last year- and am grateful for- was to subscribe to Green Dimes and Catalog Choice. Green Dimes is a paid service (I believe it is $16/year) and Catalog Choice is a free, non-profit site. Both of them will get you off of mailing lists, and greatly reduce the amount of stuff coming to your mailbox. I can say, a year later, it has made a HUGE difference for me. For a couple of months I had to log in all of my non-desired catalogs- which was a bit of a pain- but now, I am just about catalog-free and loving it! (I say that in the same voice as Kramer on Seinfeld when he talks about going underwear free and 'loving every minute of it!'). Of course, I still let my beloved J. Crew catalog (shown above) and a couple of other choice catalogs come through, but other than that, I am thrilled to be catalog free.