DO open your junk mail!
I hate junk mail. I really do. It’s a waste of resources and a waste of my excitement – because I always get excited when I have mail and am then disappointed that it’s junk mail.
But I always open my junk mail. Always. And then I shred it. Or use it for a fire starter.
And why do I open it? Well, because you get some pretty cool free stuff sometimes.
Sometimes that cool stuff is return address labels or stickers. Sometimes it’s a sample of a new dish soap or shampoo. Sometimes it’s coupons for useful (or useless) stuff. And sometimes it’s little note cards.
But sometimes it’s money. Yes, really. Sometimes it’s money.
I bet you didn’t know that, did you?
Well, it’s not unheard of for surveys to have money in them;* generally $2-5 depending on the company. Kind of a way to entice you to fill it out and turn it in. Which, since they also include pre-paid return envelopes, I always do. After all, I’d feel guilty taking the money otherwise.
So today when I opened my week’s junk mail I wasn’t surprised to see that The Nielsen Company included two, crisp, un-folded $1 bills in the envelope.
Which means I got two bucks just for opening my junk mail. Yay!
How about you? Do you open your junk mail? Will you open it now that you know there might be money in it?
* In the UK they often include a cheap pen in the envelope – which makes it ever-so-easy to fill out the form immediately! But, sadly, I never got money for my efforts there…
I’ve never gotten that kind of money, but sometimes there are coins. And, Better Homes and Gardens routinely sends me calendars. I just got my side-table calendar. I’m still waiting for the wallet-size. And I love the address labels and note cards!
Sadly never any money in the UK surveys. But you do get pens sometimes, and they’re easy to spot – you can rip open the envelope and not even have to look at the contents!!
I seem to have cured my junk mail problem by moving address – and checking the ‘don’t give my address to anyone else’ box on a regular basis. Now I just have to deal with former occupiers’ junk mail instead.
xx
Oh yeah, the UK pens! I wish the TV licence people did that. So that you don’t even have to pay for ink if you’re nice enough to actually return the form saying you don’t have a tv. I always got mad that they expected people to spend time and money talking to the TV licence people if they didn’t have a tv! Lol!
I never heard of unsolicitied surveys with money before. I’ve gotten nickels from some children’s leukaemia charity before…it actually made me kind of mad, and I would never donate money to that specific charity because I don’t want them sending my donation out in nickels to other people! Address labels can be cool…but I prefer it when they’re from a charity I don’t care tooo much about, because else I think they’re wasting money. Also, kind of annoying, because some of those address labels always have the wrong address on. Somehow one mailing list has our address all right except “Apt D”? How on earth did anyone ever get the idea that anyone lived in an apartment in our house? Interesting…
Anyway, I am probably rambling because I just got home after 6 days of slooooow bad internet LOL.
Hmmmm unfortunately, here in South Africa, we’ve not yet reached the point of being able to include any free stuff in the mail. Bummer. I’m a big fan off surprises and always open my junk mail – and I shall continue to do it until the day I get something cool! 😀 (Even if it’s just a sticker)
Oh, and seeds. Sometimes you get seeds.
Of course, the problem with the UK pens is that they are pretty much junk. They have ‘just’ enough ink for the forms and maybe a little more. So best not take a single junk mail pen to a three-hour lecture that you need to take notes for!!
BtB: I’m sorry you don’t get free stuff in your junk mail. It does make it a little nicer to have to deal with the stuff. Maybe in Berlin you’ll have better luck … ?