I've got a Jack Russel Terrier that I paid $125 for, and he shreds mail pretty effectively. Unfortunately he's not too good at discerning junk mail from the important stuff.

When I sort mail, I usually throw the junk into a paper grocery bag, then shred it once a week. I'd like to see a shredder that I could drop a grocery bag into to shred.

I think this is the one I bought for my office a year or two ago...

http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?prodCatType=1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=120352

I'm not sure I quite believe the 24-sheet claim, but I expect it would chew through a typical credit card offer.

We've got one that shreds credit cards, DVDs/CDs, etc. I'll find out the make and model for you.

I realize that this shredder does not meet your criteria for 21-25 pages, but others may find it of interest. I just bought this unit from Staples yesterday-normally $70, on-sale for $55 with a $25 rebate making the final cost $30. It is a cross-cut, 8-page, credit card slot unit and works fine for my needs:

We have a Fellowes PS70-2CD. I can feed most credit card apps with cards into it without opening and it handles them well.

One thing I'm realizing now that I'm seeing the first few replies that perhaps I should have considered before -- though it helps to have the confidence of answers from an audience such as this who are experts on all things personal-productivity...

It seems that indeed the state-of-the-art of cross-cutters is right at that uncomfortable margin, whereas the strip-cut shredders have exactly the kind of spare capacity I'm looking for.

I'm being too paranoid to insist on cross-cut shredding, I'm just looking to avoid stuff taken from the street. So if I just invest 30-seconds per recycling bag to sorta mix around all the strips, I'll add back in enough entropy to the collection of strips that it won't be worth anyone's while.

So that partial solution still substantially solves the same security problem, yet, at about a bag per month, reclaims all but 30-seconds of the effort I'd been looking to eliminate.

When someone *does* find a prosumer 24-sheet cross-cut shredder though, I am definitely still interested!

on a side note: you might want to think about trying to decrease the amount of junk mail you get. in particular, you can opt out of most credit card offers (which come indirectly through the credit agencies). https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

there are a bunch of sites on decreasing junk mail, such as
http://www.junkbusters.com/junkmail.html

nevertheless, i have similar problems with a weak shredder, so let us know what you find out.

Ativa x1800 -- from Office Depot $129.00, crosscut, takes cd's and credit cards.

I got this a couple of weeks ago. It's supposed to take 18 sheets. Not that I take the stated capacity for paper shredders, hole punchers, or staplers at face value any more! Anyway, I just went and got a couple of recent Citibank offers and fed them through with no problem, unopened.

It creates strips a quarter of an inch wide by an inch and a half long. It's on wheels.

I fed the envelope through so the widest side would go through, to distribute the thickness across the entire width of the cutters--maybe it reduced the strain.

I ultimately went w/ something below my initial specs due to the fact that, as I suspected, you get very little extra in the way of capacity btw $125 and $275. And then almost nothing until you get to $500.

Ultimately, I decided on a Staples brand 15-sht confetti-cut shredder from Staples.com (item# 615699), which is going for $99 this week only after a $30 EasyRebate (nothing to mail in).

Here was my shortlist, all prices reflect cost w/ shipping not tax:

Staples 15-sheet crosscut (item# 615699) for $99

Royal 160mx 16-sheet crosscut for about $145 from Amazon "Marketplace" (though few reviews, all were great; has an LCD display)

IdentityGuard 24-Sheet Strip-Cut Shredder for $99 from Staples (item# 576954)

OfficeMax TS9000C 18-sheet confetti cut (+CD) for $199

Fellowes Powershred PS70-2CD 15-sheet strip cut (+CD) for $149 from OfficeMax

I also checked out the (OfficeDepot house brand) Ativa x1800 (18-sheet confetti-cut), which would have been phenomenal for $129 as someone here mentioned, but that must have been a special, as I found it only for $229.

Anyway, the only ones I really felt myself torn between were the Staples, Royal and IdentityGuard units (the first three).

The thought of 24-sheet capacity, even if strip-cut, was quite tempting for $99 -- like I said, for personal shredding, capacity to shred whole envelopes unopened is probably more important than having to "stir" your strip-cut output once a month when you actually change the bag. I'm still right on the fence on that approach. Ultimately I went with confetti-cut because it creates denser output, so I don't have to change or compress the contents of the bin so often, which I felt just about evened the score.