My Single Mom Life

Before we left for Maine, I received my official U.S. Census form, I filled it out, (much to my disgust) and mailed it back in.
When I got home, I had another one waiting for me (with a warning letter attached this time) that said they had not received my census form, that it's (printed in bold on both the envelope and the letter) required by law, and I must fill it out and send it back immediately or a census worker will be contacting me.
If I had already filled it out and returned it, to please disregard this one.

I thought nothing of it, considered it a done deal.
Then I got another one of the warning letter census forms.
Then another.
And another.
It feels like that summer a few years ago when I had 5 different friends all having babies around the same time, and I got all of their baby shower invitations in the same exact week, and they had all picked dates within just a few days of each other.
That was a rough time on my wallet.
We've been home for exactly one week as of today, and including the one that I got today, I've now received a total of 9 census forms.
What the hell?
I understand that they want to try and get an accurate head count, and it is required by the U.S. Constitution, but come on man, our country is in massive debt, and here they are wasting a ton of paper, time, resources, and most importantly, money, mailing these things out to people multiple times.
It is estimated that the census is going to cost us (the taxpayers) nearly $100 Million to mail the letter announcing we'd be getting the census, then the actual census, and the postage-paid envelope included in the census.
Then you can add a few more million to that for all of the people that will be receiving, or have already received it, multiple times.
I know other people have gotten a few of these too.
My parents had also received and mailed back the first official one, and then they got the second one with the warning letter attached while we were there, and another friend of mine has also received 3 of them.
Just how many of these are they going to keep sending to us?

They can fine you up to $100 for refusing to answer the form or the in-person census taker, and if you knowingly provide false information, they can fine you up to $500.
The in-person census takers will be going out starting on May 1st, and working until July, to get the answers to the census.
If you're not home but your kids are, as long as the kid is at least 15, the census taker can make them answer the questions, and will assist them in providing the information.
It's been a really long time since they fined anyone for not answering the census, the last one was in 1960, 50 years ago, and in 1970, a court decision from Delaware holding that there is a separate violation for each question you don't answer.
Basically, on the 2010 Census form, it has 10 questions, you could be fined anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 if you refuse to answer a question, or give false answers to any questions.

Scammers love to try and take advantage of people, and census time is prime-time for them to try, so there's a list of things on Privacy Rights.org, that will help protect you and your information from scammers posing as census workers.

I have this feeling that because they keep sending me the damn thing, that I will be visited by one of these census workers, so that's why I went looking for information on it and figured that I'd share what I found out.
If you're not going to be home during the day but your kids are, (the census workers are out from May 1st through July, summer vacation for kids) and you have any kids that are at least age 15, make sure they know what to look for in regards to scammers posing as a census worker, too.
You don't want your kids accidentally giving away private information to anyone either.