My only suggestion would be to download
Thunderbird (free), and set your email up so that you check it from there. It includes a bayesian spam filter, which learns what is and isn't spam. This can be made to automatically move emails it thinks is spam into your spam folder, which will save you time. Then all you have to do is check your spam folder every few days to confirm that it hasn't grabbed something that isn't really spam.
This will work with Hotmail and Gmail, and probably others like Yahoo! also (I've never used others).