Confessions of a Cheapskate

I work in the customer service industry and I ask  people for their email addresses on a regular basis. Many refuse to give them to me because they don’t want to be ’spammed.’ (Oddly enough, in most positions I’ve held to ask this, I further ask for other sensitive information which people give without question… social security numbers, credit card numbers, etc.) Human behavior is strange!

I welcome spam! Well, legitimate spam, that is.

If I shop somewhere, I sign up for the newsletter, the email list, and I always check yes next to the box asking if it’s OK to be contacted with future information about sales, coupons, etc.

Just this week I received in my inbox a $4/20 coupon for Rite-Aid, a $15/$50 coupon for Fashion Bug, and announcement of new coupons for Healthy Choice, Glade, and Robitussin, just to name a few.

I’ve had one email address for over a decade and I use this for everything. I’m talking free samples, registering for websites for free catalogs, etc. This is a basic yahoo web-based freebie account and I might get 50 actual spam a day from it, which go directly to my spam box without me ever having to view them.

I get approximately 20 emails per day from places I’ve registered at. Rarely do I get a newsletter that doesn’t have some kind of discount or coupon associated with it. Thumbing through this mail really isn’t a huge waste of my time. It takes a few moments at best. The best part about yahoo mail is, if you don’t open email from someone consistently, eventually it automatically gets trashed for you.

If you are afraid to fill up your mailbox, or if getting spam is your biggest pet peeve, I advise you to open an email account just for ‘junk.’ You just never know when this may come in handy. Some stores are famous for sending out store coupons to email addresses and you won’t get them in the store. They may be $5/$25 purchase or better, which can be used to get some spectacular deals!

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