Day 359
Some things seem to work better in my head than in real life.
For instance, our bills arrive in the post box via a nice young man in blue Bermuda shorts who drives a minivan. However, we pay them online. I know we could get them delivered via email, but this is my preferred system. I’m afraid if we get them delivered electronically something will go haywire and I will somehow let our cable bill fall through the cracks.
And getting our cable shut off would be a bummer.
As a result of this obsolete system, I tend to collect stacks of correspondence which include a number of envelopes my creditors have enclosed for my “bill paying convenience”
It seemed a shame to let all of those perfectly good envelopes go to waste.
So, I got the brilliant idea to reuse them by crossing out the pre-printed addresses and writing in new ones.
I KNOW. I am an Eco-warrior (here you should raise your arms above your head and start humming the theme to Rocky).
But then today, I opened a letter from my utilities company that strangely had my daughter’s registration and payment for camp included as well as the following letter.
OK, the print is small, I will sum it up. Somehow, even though I carefully masked out with sharpie all the printing and other identifying information, the recycled envelope got sent to the utilities company anyway with the registration for Whiskers and Wags camp in it.
They were not as impressed with my attempt at conservation.
Because, as their form letter admonished, “Springs utilities envelopes are for utility payments only.”
I discontinued all paper bills because I pay online too, and got around the potential problem of forgetting about a bill by setting reminders that pop up a bit before they’re usually due on my online calendar and my phone calendar. It’s been actually more effective than having paper bills – I used to misplace the paper bills all the time, but as long as I don’t cancel the electronic reminders until I actually pay the thing, I never miss paying a bill.
You are probably right, I am resistant to change sometimes.
I tried that one time, too. It’s that bar code thingy at the bottom that was the culprit.
I like to hear that I am not the only one 🙂
Well it DID cost the utilities an additional cost of postage to send it back to you!!!
Yep, it’s the bar code at the bottom. When I’ve re-used envelopes like that, I make sure to black out the bar code and then I put a white mailing label over the pre-printed address. I write the new address on the mailing label. 🙂
clearly I need a better system
That’s just funny. Like really funny. I do most of my bills via auto-draft (utilities, phone, etc.) and online for others (mortgage, student loans, credit cards). I deposit most checks via the iphone app. Very little snail mail. However, I do need to attack the volume of junk mail coming to our house every week.
I had some luck after I registered with the do not send catalog people, but the volume seems to be increasing.
Actually, the bar code at the bottom looks like it was a sticker put on by the PO. But that bar code at the top? Over by the stamps? That’s likely your problem.
OK – that’s just FUNNY! Keira is attending WaW also . . . maybe they’ll be there at the same time! On another note . . . I reuse all my birthday card envelopes. Everyone who knows me does not write the name of any of my family members on the outside of any card that is hand-delivered. If they do write a name, they write it small in the upper left corner so I can put a return address label over it.
You are ALSO and eco-warrior. dun, dun, dun da, da, da, dun dun, dun
unless it’s prepaid…once they send that envelope to you it becomes YOURS, to do with what you want. but yes, it was the barcode that did it.
I laughed when I read this, I will reuse envelopes sometimes but haven’t been caught out as yet, I will have to watch out for those barcodes! I mainly reuse the envelopes to send notes and money in to the school when the kids need to take in money for ‘hot food day’, raffles and so forth. Thanks for the giggle!
Oh that is funny! Cranky little electrical company – sure it’s for the bill but if you online pay it why not put to use the wasteful envelope? Next to no bills in Australia come with envelopes now days. Those who don’t do it online or by phone do it at the post office which I see a lot but have never done so don’t totally understand :p
I know this is not the point of your post but as part of The Simple Year, did you ever consider getting rid of cable? We haven’t had cable for ever and we don’t miss it. We do use Amazon instant watch once in a while and have a subscription to Netflix ($7/ month) and it seems to satisfy the entire family.
Are there any rules prohibiting larceny in the Simple Year? If not, you could simply just snatch / boost a few envelopes from work.
On another envelope note, I very much love to fish; therefore, my name is on all sorts of mailing lists for “outdoor” activities. In other words, I receive catalogs for companies that sell hunting supplies. Now I am not against hunting; however, I am against assault weapons. Considering this, I am definitely not on the same page as the NRA. Despite this, they send me registration materials from time to time. When I receive these I draft a note that shares my beliefs and I send it back to them in their postage paid envelope. Basically, it’s my way of sticking it to the NRA (47 cents at a time)!
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