Postal Survey

(ok I do things like this because I am a numbers geek....)

There has been talk lately about cutting back the US Postal Service's mail delivery to weekdays only, or even to only 3-4 days a week. That made me wonder how much of my mail do I actually read -- I figured it was a small fraction. So I decided to track my home snail mail for a month and see how what it looked like.

Here are the results for the 161 pieces of mail we got (percentages are rounded, more or less):

Mail content

• Personal mail (cards, packages from family and friends): 3.5%
• Magazines: 5%
  
• Business mail (from companies we have a relationship with, i.e., credit card bills, insurance documents, etc): 11%
• Unsolicited advertising: 72%
• Other: 4% (mostly census notifications!)
  
• Non-resident: 4%

Mail processing

• Mail read: 20%
• Mail skimmed and tossed: 6%
• Mail thrown away unopened: 73%

So there you go. Nearly 3 in 4 pieces of mail are thrown away without ever being opened. In all honesty, I was surprised that rate wasn't higher.

But anyway, yeah, I think we can cut back the delivery service a few days a week.