I’m sure you’ve felt the crippling blow of credit card debt in your life at some point. Perhaps even now.

So have I. When I was much younger our family sweated at jobs we hated just to keep up with all the payments. And it’s not like we were living the high life off the debt, either. Most of it was spent on basic necessities and the occasional simple pleasure.

If you’re clever, credit cards are a great way to “float” the payment of anything you buy for as much as 25 to 30 days after purchase – taking advantage of the grace period without racking up interest. That’s how I make use of them today, and I think the only sensible way to deal with personal credit (business credit is another thing entirely.)

But beneath the obvious veneer lurks a more sinister legal truth – one that can trash your credit rating and leave you drowning in fees.

At first these lies sound sensible, even smart. However, their bite is often worse than you could imagine.

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Investing & Finance banking, credit, credit card debt, credit cards, credit rating, credit score, debt, identity theft, money, personal finance, spending

Cutting down on e-mail spam can be as simple as switching to a new e-mail address, using expendable “black hole” e-mail addresses when signing up on websites you don’t completely trust, or making sure your e-mail server is using Spam Assassin or some other whiz-bang spam killer.

But what about your physical home address?

Sure, you can make good use of P.O. boxes, CMRA’s, and even ghost addresses – but those strategies will only divert unwanted junk mail away from your main location. They won’t solve the large issue of getting the stuff in the first place.

That’s not to say I’m anti-direct mail. I’m not. In fact I like the pleasant surprise of getting an offer in the mail from time to time for something I’m interested in that I never would’ve known existed otherwise. And using targeted direct mail for your own business is just smart commerce.

But they keyword here is TARGETED. That means it’s something you’re going to be hot for the product before you even open the envelope. The problem is, most marketers don’t know the meaning of the word, and that’s why we’re harassed every day with a glut of “pre-approved” credit card offers and a slew of miscellaneous crap.

So here are 4 easy steps you can take to cut down on unwanted junk mail by at least 90%

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Privacy & Security cmra, credit cards, data companies, direct mail, equifax, experian, ghost address, junk mail, mail, opt-out, privacy, privacy protection, transunion