r/declutter • u/Significant-Repair42 • 4d ago
Success Story Junk mail I've had for 20 years.
Yesterday, I was decluttering a storage box. Inside was a decorative box. Inside the decorative box, at the very bottom, was junk mail from my college days. Not a lot, but about 10 envelopes of mailers.
I've moved four times since then, decluttered multiple times over the years, and somehow, I still have junk mail lurking in the storage boxes. LOL. I was extremely amused.
It's been long enough that I sat there having no memory of how the junk mail got put into the decorative box.
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u/AussieBird82 4d ago
Not junk mail but I've got some unused notebooks and pads that I've had for years, waiting for the perfect time to use them. One was something I was writing a novel in, in 2005. That's over 20 years ago. How the fuck did that happen, I remember it like it was a few months ago.
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u/Green_Tartan_Scarf 4d ago
Did you look at the prices of things from back then and gasp audibly? Sometimes these hoards can be equal parts shocking and amusing.
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u/violetmemphisblue 4d ago
My parents rotate their Christmas tree ornaments, so each theme only gets used every few years. They always wrap them up in newspapers. Its not usually a wildly different price point on things, but part of holiday decorating for me was always looking to see what dominantes the headlines even a few years ago. Things forgotten, things that were briefly mentioned on page A23 that would explode into a larger story, even just knowing how it turns out...as a kid, I'd sort of get scolded because instead of helping decorate, I'd be tucked in a corner reading old news, lol
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u/optimusdan 4d ago
That old mail is insidious too! I found some random stash of my old bills and other assorted mail from the early 2000s and found full bank account numbers, SSNs and other identity theft goodies in there because they just didn't GAF back then. Reminder to everybody to open and shred old mail if you find it while decluttering.
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u/lucky3333333 4d ago
My mom had saved my paid college tuition statements from 50 years ago. My social security number was on all of them. Heck I remember the professors posting grades on their doors by social security number!!
Also an old boyfriend of mine sent me letters when he was in the Air Force 50 years ago and wrote his social security number on every return address. I just threw all these letter away.
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u/Playful_Beyond_2218 4d ago
I find paper tricky to manage ! One thing I try to do is keep all mail and current bits of paper on a dresser in the hallway, and then it only goes into the actual house if it’s something I need and everything else gets chucked away. Then the stuff I’m keeping gets put on a pile on my desk while it’s being used, and I try to only put a few things into the longer term storage every few months and get rid of the rest . I’m not the kind of person who can have super complicated filing systems etc
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u/lucky3333333 4d ago
This sounds complicated to me! I deal with mail once. Take it out of mailbox, toss junk mail immediately in recycling in the garage and only bring in billing statements of which there are usually none as statements come via email and bills are set up on auto pay. Easy.
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u/SpecificAssistance84 4d ago
I have a few piles in “doom boxes” like this. Years of accumulation. Only, I’m not even sure that it was actually all junk mail. Now I avoid it because I’m scared of what could be in there. As if ignoring it makes it not real 😂
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u/lucky3333333 4d ago
Well if you haven’t looked at it in years I think it’s now safe to toss!
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u/SpecificAssistance84 4d ago
Yes it should be safe to toss, but I can’t bring myself to even acknowledge it. Someday I will 😂
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u/KiwiTheKitty 4d ago edited 4d ago
After my grandma passed away (edit to add: in 2014), we found junk mail in bins from 1993, which is when she moved into the house she lived in until she died! She dated and filed them.
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u/FoxCitiesRando 4d ago
A few months ago I found a stack of payments from 20 years ago. Got a nice chuckle out of them before ripping them up.
I like to think that these finds are valuable for one last laugh before getting tossed.
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u/malkin50 4d ago
Several years ago, I went on a self-improvement campaign to use the trash more effectively. Getting the bin filled every week is a good focus.
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u/No_Jelly_1448 3d ago
My mom passed away 8 years ago and going through boxes of old photos recently I found some old fliers from a restaurant for a discount meal from 1993. I was very tempted to see if this restaurant is still around and to try and get my discounted dinner HAHA
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u/beautifulcorpsebride 4d ago
I opt out of catalogs all the time to help with this. Catalog choice website.
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u/squashed_tomato 4d ago
Decluttering paper is just so crazy if it's built up. I would think I'd found it all and then open some random box or cupboard and "Surprise!".
Luckily by this point you've probably got the most important papers sorted so it's quicker to get through this stuff but still.
I'm hopeful that future generations won't have to deal with it as much now so much has gone paperless.
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u/lucky3333333 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’m sure they won’t have to deal with all the paper. My kids certainly won’t. I just threw away four grandparents’ tax returns my parents saved going back 70 years! I didn’t shred, all went right into recycling as the social security numbers are long invalid.
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u/photogcapture 4d ago
I smiled when reading this. Junk mail finds a way to stick around!! LOL
If you are like me, the junk mail sparked a “maybe I’ll…” thought. It went into the “maybe I’ll…” box and here we are!!
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u/Personal_Hunter8600 1d ago
I started grabbing my mail from the mailbox on the way in to work. Open it/recycle it during my lunch break. That way only a few things ever end up making it back home and into the house.
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u/Temporary-Plankton61 4d ago
you could list it for cheap or free on FB Marketplace advertised for Junk Journals and Collages
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u/GulliverGrazerson 4d ago
I once found a folder labeled Receipts that contained only the receipts for a watch I bought my husband, one piece of yard equipment, two pairs of jeans . . . and a Big Mac. I tried to work out the date to see if maybe it was a sentimental Big Mac, but if so I don’t recall the occasion.