by Beks
My husband and I contribute to several charitable organizations throughout the year. Last year, one of them asked us if they could e-mail us monthly notices requesting our pledged donation rather than mail the paper copy. They anticipated this change would save a huge amount of money on postal expenses and I agreed with their new terms.
I get a lot of e-mail each day. Not because I’m popular or important, but because I get junk mail. Every few years, I switch e-mail addresses but without fail, the junk still comes. Because of this, my junk mail settings are stringent. I glance through the junk mail box and catch a non-junk piece or two but it’s not a fool proof method.
I printed my tax receipt from the charitable organization and realized I had missed three months of payments. Not consecutively, just random months were missing. When I checked my junk mailbox for one of the months, the bold reminder e-mail was still unread. Apparently some months make it through, while others don’t.
I made up the missing payments and set a reminder on my calendar but I can’t help but wonder if I’m not the only one whose charitable giving was lessened on the new e-mail system. Those three missed payments would have covered nearly two decades in postage fees to mail the paper copy to me. Fortunately I caught it and 2011 will be a more reliable year of payments from me but has anyone else experienced the same problem? Or is it just me demonstrating, yet again, that I am perhaps the least tech savvy person on the planet?
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
Can you not add their email address to your whitelist? That way it would always go into your inbox instead of your spam folder, because you’ve pre-approved it?
I don’t have junkmail issues; I use Gmail and two separate addresses (that both forward to the same inbox) – one is my “real” email address, the other is the one I give out when filling in online forms.
I’m with Caitlin. I’ve used GMail since 2004 and it’s changed the way I handle junk mail. VERY rarely do I have to venture into my junk email folder to look for something I suspect was misunderstood as junk. Definitely check it out!
I spend a good bit of time unsubscribing from emails i don’t want anymore. It’s kind of a pain, but it does keep the junk to a minimum. I’m sure you aren’t the only one though…it’s hard to keep up with everything when you get like 50 crap emails a day.
Here we set up a direct debit where the charity can collect from you the same amount monthly without correspondence or a standing order which is controlled from you bank and makes the payment. I will appr3eciate them more now I know not everything is this simple!
Lizzie
I have my charitable giving worked into my budget so on the 1st and 15th, that’s the 1st payment I make. I pay online and the charity I give to keeps their own account of every payment I have made over the past few years as well as email me a receipt immediately after I make a payment. I too am a fan of Gmail – I have a separate folder just for contributions, and since I am sitting at my computer paying all my bills at once, I just check my email right after all my payments are done and make sure I received a receipt. They also have the option of recurring payments, which is nice.
Another vote for gmail, it’s made a huge difference. And I have two gmail accounts. One for my regular stuff, and one that I use for email coupons and e-newsletters that I want, but without clogging up my regular accounts.
Sorry this is OT, but where is Tricia?? No update from her in months…