Who thinks it was a waste to send out notifications of the census questionnaire?

Today I received what I first thought was my census questionnaire. I opened it to find that it was a notification that I would be receiving the questionnaire in about a week. I already knew that it was coming. It occurred to me that millions pf people got this same piece of paper that cost 43 cents to mail. Honestly, what was the point? It seems like a complete waste of money to me, and serves no purpose whatsoever except to waste money to print, then pay someone to fold and stuff into an envelope, then mail. Can anyone tell me a good reason why this happened, or is it just another example of Government waste? Did we really need to spend the money this way?