Snail mail/U.S. Mail, how often do you check your mailbox?

[tvguy]

Another informed delivery user.

I take the contents of the mail box and throw it all away nearly every day.

I might get something meaningful once a month.

You're young, and sound a lot like my wife. A lot of Medicare mail LOOKS like junk mail. The return address is CMS, not Medicare. If you go on Medicare before you go on Social Security, you have to set up auto pay. When you go on Social Security, they automatically take it out of your Social Security AND do the auto pay for the first month. My wife threw out a $185 refund check from that. Fortunately she did NOT tear it up as is her normal practice with junk mail. She also threw out a $450 check from an investment company that ran her employers 401k plan. She figured it was junk mail since she rolled everything out into an IRA a year before, but they found her last contribution and company match before retiring did not go into her account until after she rolled everything out.
And that same brokerage sent her six figure rollover in the form of a check. The do not do electronic transfer.

 

[barkley]

Not sure you can legislate that brick and mortar pharmacies stay open.

no but you can legislate that insurance companies can't require consumers use only mail order so that those who prefer to use brick and mortar as well as those who can't use mail order continue to utilize the brick and mortars that wish to stay open and have a customer base that if not prevented by their insurance would CONTINUE to use them (my local pharmacy has stuck it out since 1882). brick and mortars are essential when it comes to a prescription that's needed immediately (or at least sooner than the several days a week some of us face even with supposed 'overnight delivery').

 

[eticketplease]

Mail order pharmacies default to the U.S Postal Service, since they are the only delivery service required to deliver to every address in the nation.

Not quite accurate for every address but perhaps mailing address. There are many homes in rural areas that can have FedEX and UPS delivery to their home address but USPS requires them to rent a PO Box in town at the post office which is their mailing address but not physical address.

 

[barkley]

You're young, and sound a lot like my wife. A lot of Medicare mail LOOKS like junk mail. The return address is CMS, not Medicare. If you go on Medicare before you go on Social Security, you have to set up auto pay. When you go on Social Security, they automatically take it out of your Social Security AND do the auto pay for the first month. My wife threw out a $185 refund check from that. Fortunately she did NOT tear it up as is her normal practice with junk mail. She also threw out a $450 check from an investment company that ran her employers 401k plan. She figured it was junk mail since she rolled everything out into an IRA a year before, but they found her last contribution and company match before retiring did not go into her account until after she rolled everything out.
And that same brokerage sent her six figure rollover in the form of a check. The do not do electronic transfer.

we've had 2 important items resemble junk mail recnently-one was a yearly certification we have to do on our septic. this year the county changed from a letter to what looks like a junk postcard that refers you to the county website to access information/forms. one was a letter from a long forgotten employer notifying dh about some old pension funds on deposit with them but the envelope was pretty non descript-it was less than $50 but money is money. I at least eyeball stuff before I toss it.

btw-informed delivery must work better in some places than other. I hear lots of complaints about expecting something to be in the mailbox based on what informed delivery has reported for a given day only to not receive it.

 

[barkley]

Not quite accurate for every address but perhaps mailing address. There are many homes in rural areas that can have FedEX and UPS delivery to their home address but USPS requires them to rent a PO Box in town at the post office which is their mailing address but not physical address.

the local postmaster has repeated threatend neighborhoods including my own of ending delivery due to poorly maintained rural roads but I saw more people refused delivery in the non rural area I lived in within california due to carriers encountering unrestrained dogs.

 

[loves to dive]

We check ours every day. We really don't get anything important except our car tag renewals once a year. Otherwise, all our bills are paid electronically and I still get my and our dogs prescriptions filled at a pharmacy (one in a Kroger, a local grocery store). My insurance offers to fill prescriptions by mail but they aren't any less and since we have to go to the grocery store at least once a week any way, it's no big deal to pick them up. My insurance company doesn't require they be filled by mail so unless they do, I'll continue to get them at the pharmacy. I do get a certain amount of OTC things for free from my insurance so if we are running out of Advil or Aleve or my vitamins or even bandaids, I'll order those and get them delivered. We check it daily basically just because the dog needs to go out and I need to get up and move around so a walk down the driveway works. Amazon will deliver a few things via US mail but we always know when those are coming.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I theoretically check every day but Sunday (though I'm sure I miss a busy day here and there).

I do not have informed delivery because based on others' reports, I'm sure it would cause me more stress than it would save me.

I hate that insurance companies are requiring delivery because some medications should not sit out all day in the heat or cold until someone gets home from work and checks their mail.

As for the days if the week, I have this amusing clock:

 

[wabbott]

Been using informed delivery for years. I look at my incoming first thing in the morning.

 

[kdonnel]

You're young, and sound a lot like my wife.

I’m in my mid 50’s, I have just turned on electronic delivery of everything I can to minimize physical mail, as have my eighty year old in laws. They never get anything from Medicare or social security.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Usually every day... sometimes I forget though

 

[kdonnel]

I hate that insurance companies are requiring delivery because some medications should not sit out all day in the heat or cold until someone gets home from work and checks their mail.

I often hear this argument and when I do I point out that those goods/medications have been shipped many times already.

They were in a shipping container or rail car or semi, like an oven for days.

They were in an un air conditioned warehouse for some period of time.

If the last mile delivery was going to change the product it would get shipped protected from the outside temperature from the beginning.

For example my mother in law gets some medications that need to be kept cool so they get shipped in a disposable cooler. They were shipped from the factory in a refrigerated shipping container, or rail car, or semi. They were kept in a refrigerator at a warehouse. They have been kept cool their entire life.

 

[AnnaS]

I also signed up for Informed Delivery through the Post Office a few months ago. I check it every morning. It's not 100%. Some days it shows mail only to show up the next day or so. It does not happen too often and It's fine. I like the feature.

I still and always checked my mailbox every day in the late afternoon. Even now, like I said, some mail pieces might not come that day. Some mornings I get no email/no mail - but might get what was missed the day before. It's not a big deal either way. There really is nothing urgent that can't wait a day or so. The bills that I get in the mail, they go out the next morning anyway.

Half my mail are real estate agents letters/cards or mass cards.......

 

[lovesmurfs]

When we lived in Chicagoland, we had a mailbox that went straight into our house. Now that we have to go down the street to get them, I use Informed Delivery to see if something interesting is coming. We pick up a couple of times a week unless something important is scheduled to arrive.

 

[_19disnA]

Have always checked the mailbox daily. No big deal to walk out the front door to the curb where the box is located. If we are going to be out of town/vacationing/etc., use the online 'hold mail' feature that works great. Occasionally get mail for a neighbor or they get our mail, so never bothered signing up for informed delivery. Mail arrives either in the morning or evening, so generally check the box later in the day. It does seem like the volume of junk mail went down during Covid and has never gotten back to where it used to be which I consider a good thing. Seems some companies spend a lot of money on flyers that hardly anyone even looks at.

 

[Kitty 34]

We usually check ours every day.

 

[lynxstch]

I check informed delivery daily. If it shows no mail, I don't bother. We have what they call a cluster box, across the street, where 16 neighbors get their mail, all in locked boxes. I also have had prescriptions delivered, and one time, I found out the carrier had set it down in the one open spot with no door reserved for packages, and forgot to bring it across the street. Luckily I had gone out right after he came as I was expecting the delivery and found it myself, before someone else came along and took it.

 

[easyas123]

I usually check it daily, once in a while I'll skip it. Like others, we no longer have a mailbox at the end of our driveway, rather as part of a bank of mailboxes at the end of the road.