Unopened Mail

When you guys get home from work, do you open your mail? Do you even stop at the mailbox?

I bring the mail up every day, I'm kind of anal about it actually. I don't like the thought of my banking information sitting in a little flimsy metal box just asking to be stolen. But this is as far as the mail gets - thrown on the table next to the door.

And I'm not talking junk mail - I put a stop to that at the mail box with a big friendly note to the mailman asking him not to leave me any. I'm talking about legitimate mail - addressed to me, from real institutions. We have also turned off all our paper bills.

Seriously though - how much of your mail is important enough to open right away? If it's something that looks like a cheque or a letter from a friend - don't get me wrong - those envelopes are opened right away. As for the rest - 99% of my mail sits on the table for weeks before I open it. Then 99.9% of it goes straight in the shredder.

The worst offenders are the banks - they like to let me know that I've deposited money into my RRSP. Thanks. And there is no way to turn this off. Is this really necessary? Then there is the junk-mail-that-is-addressed-to-me-personally - Victoria Symphony, random charities, Camosun College....

This has never come back to haunt me either. After sitting on the table for six weeks, I have yet to open a letter from the bank that says "Oh Crap! Your bank account has been hacked and you now owe us 10,000!!"

I wish there was a way we could opt out of all this crap. Kind of like the "Do Not Call List" but we all know how well that worked.