Shredder Review: Staples MailMate & Tips on What to Shred

The Staples MailMate Shredder is an excellent personal shredder for day-to-day moderate usage -- like shredding those credit offers and other junk mail as SOON AS it comes in.  No more piles of "To Shred"  paper! I keep mine right under my desk which is where I open mail. (I also have a bin for paper to be recycled.) They are small and inexpensive enough that you may want to have one in your kitchen as well as in your home office or whereever you bring your mail into the house.

Here are the “pros” of the shredder: 

• VERY Easy to empty basket  
• Shreds using the Cross-cut method which truly destroys what you are shredding.  It comes out in tiny bits!
• It's very powerful and can shred non-paper items like CDs, credit cards, etc.
• Can shred quite 20 pages at a time - even unopened mail like those stupid credit card offers & all those "convenience checks" the credit card companies send
• Compact size &  Light weight
• Has Child safety features like auto off
• Fast shredding
• Jam resistant - I haven't not had a single jam with it in the year and a half I've had it.  My old shredder jammed all the time.
• Price - with a $20 rebate which is very easy to submit online, this cost around $40.

Here are the “cons” of the shredder: 

• A little loud but quieter then my previous shredder!
• Shredder slot is small for paper - you have to fold the paper first to shred it
• Small basket (needs to be emptied often, but it's extremely easy to pull out the basket and dump it into your wastebasket)

What to Do With Your Old Shredder
If, like me, your spouse has a home office in the basement and you are on the second floor, you can put your old shredder in the office of whoever uses it least!  (My husband got the old one : ) 

WHAT TO SHRED AND WHAT NOT TO SHRED

I only shred paper that has financial account numbers or my SSN on it.  If I shredded everything with my name & address on it, I'd spend way too much time and energy sweating.  You can just tear it and recycle it, or mark it out with a Sharpie.

Besides, most identity theft occurs from people with access to your files.  Beyond that, identify theft has gone high tech.  Your info can be gotten from public records, easily available mailing lists, and from places where you actually use your cards to shop. E.g., a hacker gets into a company's stored credit card numbers, etc. 

See Related Links & Posts:

• OptOut - never receive a pesky pre-approved credit card offer again. Do it online or call 1-888-5-OPTOUT.
• Getting Rid of Junk Mail
• Tips for Processing Incoming Mail