Spam assaulting your inbox is bad. Advertising that motivates you to make unnecessary purchases is even worse. So why would we want you to open yourself up to thousands of email that are, for all intents and purposes, spam? Easy, it will save you hundreds of dollars annually.
Not Your 'Real' Inbox
A junk email account is the best way to keep your 'real' inbox clean, healthy, and functional. By creating an email account that is used exclusively as a spam collector, you'll be able to stay spam free with the email you use on a regular basis. In addition, since it's outside of your regular mail account, you won't be checking it regularly - helping to keep a lid on unnecessary expenses.
Setting Up Your Junk Mail
If you use gmail, go to Yahoo!; if you have Hotmail, look into gmail. The bottom line is you want to setup your junk mail account with another service provider altogether so you can segregate the good from the bad. In addition, if you use Outlook or another service to consolidate multiple email accounts, don't bother and certainly don't try to hook this junk mail into your mobile phone. Keep it simple; keep it web based; keep it at a distance.
Register Where You Shop
Wherever it is that you like to shop, start registering your junk email account everywhere you can. The basic rule is to register anywhere and everywhere that you might spend money in the future. Many of these websites will immediately send you some kind of a discount offer for registering with the site (though you're not obligated to go out and take them up on their offers). Once you're registered, you'll start receiving regular emails with a wide variety of savings coupons, discounts, notices of sales, etc.
Here's the Trick
To actually save money instead of being induced to spend more, you should only check your junk mail when you need to spend money on something. If a birthday is coming up and Macy's would do the trick, go into your junk mail and find the latest coupons and savings (by the way, we're convinced that Macy's has a sale 365 days each year as their 'sale' signs never seem to come down). The most important thing to remember is to buy only when you need to and not just because there is a sale.
No Discount, No Problem
As you may have heard, the old adage of 'paying full price for something you need is better than getting 50% off of something you don't need' is an important one to remember. If you need to go buy something, check your junk mail for a discount, but if there isn't one, no problem. Buying something you need without a discount isn't ideal, but it's not as bad as wasting money on stuff you don't need.
Maintaining Your Spam
Since nothing in your junk mail account is really necessary, you can go in periodically and clean it out without fear of losing anything important. About once every month or so, go in and delete anything that is more than 30 days old. This way, the offers you have in your inbox will stay current and the amount of spam you're looking at will be manageable.
Wrapping Up
If you take some time to create a spam account and use it wisely, you can easily save hundreds of dollars each year with the coupons, discounts, and special offers received throughout the year. The best part, of course, is your personal email will remain uncluttered and you'll still receive the full benefit of promotions from your retailers of choice. Just remember to use your spam account only when needed because marketers are experts in sucking you into a sale.
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