You ever wonder where your time goes? Mine sometimes just disappears into the ethers of filing through junk email, snail mail, and telemarketers who are trying to market to me personally, to my business entity, and also to my wife's business. She gets over 40 different monthly magazines. You think we're ever on any mailing lists?

Although there are ways to combat this if you stay in one place long enough, for people who move around often, combating junk solicitation can be a real pain. Since I just relocated and fought the good fight, I thought I'd share this information, since it seems increasingly more difficult to dig up as the days go by and we get bombarded with more and more information.

Today and in the future, those who get ahead will not be the one's with the information, but with the best, most accurate, and timely information.

Tired of spam?

Tired of telemarketers?

Tired of junk mail?

Tired of throwing away credit card offers addressed to your dog? (I've gotten one!)

Then here are some links I've found useful since relocating and having my new address and phone numbers become every marketers dream...and my nightmare.

At the very least, register with: www.donotcall.gov

Do Not Call is great, but every time I move I also do this with all my new phone numbers and home address:

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/offtelephonelist.html

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/offmailinglist.html

Just fill in the info online and print them out. You'll need to send each one in a separate envelope. It's a bit of a hassle, but cuts down on the solicitations and junk mail you receive dramatically. Bonus: It's FREE!

The email one is easy and free too. Just click on the link in the email they send to you after registering. http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumers/optoutform_emps.shtml

To stop getting credit card offers, you have to talk to the three credit bureaus. You may begin to feel like you're running in circles by now...

http://www.experian.com/privacy/opting_out.html

http://www.transunion.com/content/page.jsp?id=/personalsolutions/general/data/OptOut.xml

http://www.equifax.com/universal/fcra.shtml (Buried deep at the bottom of the page)

A little background for the curious:

The DMA is the Direct Marketing Association; ie: the first company mass mailers turn to for addresses to send stuff to. (Full disclosure: I used to work for a company that culled addresses for the DMA and mailed out tons of junk ma...I mean free stuff everyone wanted)

If you remove yourself from the DMA rolls, you've cut about 80-85% of all junk mail you might get. Ever.

The Key to the DMA's approach: They want you to register on-line for $5 and try to make it sound like the end of the world if you mail it in instead, which is free. Stick with the mail. While online is "instant" the mail takes 30-60 days. You've been getting junk mail this long, another month or two isn't going to kill you.

Clearly the advantage to the DMA is it's free money in their pocket. Since getting off a list is a free service they offer, they simply charge a "online fee" for an easy slam dunk profit to the bottom line. Sound familiar?

Don't even get me started on how spurious commercial bank fees hurt the people who can least afford to pay them.

Anyway, you're good for 5 years off DMA lists after registering.

This information is not easy to find for a reason. These are all direct links, you just have to click on them and it will display the proper info.

All in all, it takes about 30-40 minutes to do all this, but the amount of time saved not sifting through junk mail and answering unwanted solicitations is much greater.

Especially when all you're trying to do is unpack.