Mail retrieval when traveling

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J

jimbowie

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May 8, 2013
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Next year we plan to travel for undecided length of time. At least a few months. Any tips for getting your US mail when traveling?
 
I'm guessing you have an actual home you will be returning to?

The post office will FORWARD 1st class, Express Mail, and packages for up to one year.  Magazines and periodicals for up to 60 days.  I would sign up for a mail forwarding service like the full-timers use in FL, SD, or TX.  You can do that without changing your legal residence.  Escapees in TX is a good one, there are certainly others.  You then tell your home town post office to forward your mail to that service. The mail service can forward your mail to your current location, either in care of a campground (if they permit it) or to General Delivery at the nearest post office whenever you instruct them to.  Unlike the post office, the mail service can accept UPS and FedEx packages for you and forward them also.

This presupposes you don't have a family member or trusted friend who can pick up and forward your mail for you.
 
The problem is the Post Office only accepts ONE Change of Address/Forwarding request at a time ... your mail will be sent to a single address for the duration of your trip, they won't forward your mail to various locations as you travel around the country.

That's where a mail forwarding service comes in.  You have the Post Office forward your mail to them, then they handle getting it to you wherever you are.  Usually this means selecting a Post Office in a small or medium sized town where you expect to be in a few days.  When you contact your forwarder, they will put all of your mail into a single envelope or box and send it there.  It's called General Delivery and you go to the service counter at the Post Office, present your ID and collect your mail.

Small towns with a single Post Office work best, larger towns and cities with multiple Post Office branches only handle General Delivery at one location, usually at the main downtown P.O. and this may not be convenient for you to get to.

After your trip, you cancel the forwarding request at your local Post Office and they'll resume delivery to your house.  Or you can set up and cancel the forwarding online at usps.com

Escapees and FMCA offer mail forwarding services geared towards RVers.  UPS Stores are another option, they often rent mailboxes (similar to P.O. boxes) in their stores, and usually they can collect the mail sent to the box and send it to you.
 
Or find a neighbor like me. 
I get my neighbors mail every summer, for 3 months while they travel, and if we will be gone, neighbor 2 gets both our mails. 
It's great having great neighbors  :))
 
I use a Private Mail Box or PMB. I  have my mail temporarily forwarded from our home address to our PMB. A PMB is offered by commercial businesses. They will hold your mail until you contact them and provide an address for them to forward your mail.

I use American Home Bace located in Pensacola,  FL. I picked them because they were recommended by Good Sam's. Good Sam's has moved to another mail forwarding service. I haven't.

I can have my mail forwarded as often as I like. There is a basic fee for service and a charge for mailing your mail to you.

American Home Base  is a basic service. I can call or go to their web site to provide an address for forwarding. I can choose to have them discard junk mail.

FMCA is sponsoring a PMB that will allow you to access photos of your mail and then you can choose what mail you want forwarded and what you wish to have discarded. I believe that they will open a letter and digitally provide a copy of the contents if you choose.

Safe travels.  JD
 
Yellowboat said:
FMCA is sponsoring a PMB that will allow you to access photos of your mail and then you can choose what mail you want forwarded and what you wish to have discarded. I believe that they will open a letter and digitally provide a copy of the contents if you choose.
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It's my understanding that FMCA suggests using YourBestAddress of Sioux Falls SD which is the mail forwarding service we currently use.  You can use YBA either as a  "basic" mail forwarder or you can pay a bit more and get the digital service Yellowboat is describing.

With the digital service, I get both text and email notifications of any mail that arrives in my box.  I can use my laptop or an app on my phone to look at a photo of the outside of the envelop which, of course, provides me the return address information.  In many cases, that, by itself, is enough for me to determine if the item is important or not.  For each item I can elect to have it shredded, forwarded to an address of my choice or opened, scanned and emailed to me. 

We don't get much snail mail these days and much of what we do receive is nothing more than routine acknowledgement letters from banks and credit card companies.  With YBA's digital package we are finding that very few items need to be scanned or forwarded.
 
The Post office has a short term mail forwarding service as suggested above. In THEORY they intercept all mail to you and Foreward to you when you call..  Not sure how good they are..  I used a neighbor when I part timed.

Now I use a Postal box store (Postal Depot is the one I use) most UPS stores offer this and there is a "plus" with UPS stores.

Now they are authorised to not only accept my US mail but Fed-Ex, UPS. and other "you have to sign for it" mail.. Then they forward to where I ask 'em (Campground usually).

UPS stores.. You need to verify this. But I think they will ship. UPS of course. to a UPS store near you for low or no cost (may just be no cost to receive and hold the package for pickup) had to do this one time but since i'm not a UPS customer I had to pay for the service.

I've been with Postal Depot for about a decade.
 
I have a PMB at a UPS store. They trash the junk mail, receive and sign for parcels. If I?m in my S&B I go by periodically and pick up the mail, otherwise they send it wherever I ask them. I?m very lucky as the folks at UPS treat me very well. I have been using this service for 15-20 years. I absolutely refuse to receive mail at S&B home.
 
I also recommend putting as many regular bills on automatic pay as you can.  This cuts down on the amount of mail you receive, or at least makes it less time-reliant in terms of bill paying.  You still have to keep track of payments that cannot be done automatically.  For example, all our utilities and telephones are paid automatically, but our neighbor tells us when he gets his tax bill which cannot be put on automatic pay.  We then call the property tax people and pay it with the credit card.  We do still get paper copies of our bills in case something gets missed.  That paid off a couple of years ago when I realized I hadn't received monthly paperwork on my retirement account.  The postal delivery person thought our house was empty and returned our mail!  The retirement account people then reverted to our previous address in California which then started deducting state tax from my check.  I was really glad I knew exactly when the payments stopped and could get out of the California tax situation quickly before it got too far along (yes the deducted tax was refunded - thankfully!!).  It's good to set up some kind of income/expense system so you know if any revenue hasn't arrived or a bill hasn't been paid.

ArdraF
 
Thank you all for the response. All good tips I will follow up on. It sounds very doable. I have time and will check the different ways and get something set up. Thanks again. This place is great.

Jim
 
ArdraF said:
I also recommend putting as many regular bills on automatic pay as you can.  This cuts down on the amount of mail you receive, or at least makes it less time-reliant in terms of bill paying.  You still have to keep track of payments that cannot be done automatically.  For example, all our utilities and telephones are paid automatically, but our neighbor tells us when he gets his tax bill which cannot be put on automatic pay.  We then call the property tax people and pay it with the credit card.

ArdraF   
Click to expand...

Hi ArdraF and all,

This idea (mine) may work for some and I very much appreciate ArdraF's ideas above as She has been doing this long enough to know what works. This is for people who don't want to pay electronically.

First I have a copy of when my bills come due and pull that up several times each month to see what is going on. Before I go on a trip I copy all my bills that I pay by mail. You need to copy based on the time you will be away. I keep those on hand in my trip envelope to send out before the due date. It's an easy way to go, then just pick up the mail when I get back. I do forward mail to my Son and DIL so they can keep tabs on things.
 
I full-time and do the same as Audra and get almost no regular mail.  I have direct deposit of SS and my paycheck from my part-time job.  Nearly all bills are automatically paid through my checking account.  One or two from smaller companies won't do auto pay, but they do charge a credit card each month.  I check my online checking and credit card accounts often to verify that payments are made.  Then I pay my credit card manually through my checking account.

I also have electronic access to and electronic statements for my investments.  And even my Medicare statements are online for me to check, including Part C and D statements. 

I do have to make estimated tax payments, but even then the federal government and nearly all states and municipalities accept electronic payments.

Once in a long while, I get something from a doctor or somewhere else, but my kids who receive my mail have my permission to open it and send me a photo using their cell phone.  For example, recently, my doctor sent information about a cat scan I have scheduled, so my son sent me a text message with a photo.  About the only thing that causes a problem is an occasional rebate check from something. 

I would strongly encourage anyone who travels a few months of the year (or even if they don't travel) to set up things electronically.  Much easier and not as much forgetting or having to write checks and send out bill payments. 
 
Before I go on a trip I copy all my bills that I pay by mail.
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That's a smart thing to do Al, thanks for the tip. Most of our deposits and payments are done automatically, some 'manually' online. We have one or two payees who can't/won't set up auto pay or even online account review/payment.

We used USPS premium mail forwarding ($$) for several years, and they do allow you to change destinations online. Unfortunately, this proved to be a waste of time and money; Our local post office couldn't get things right, even after several visits to speak with the Postmaster in person and several phone calls. Apart from sending to the wrong location, they sometimes didn't send at all, and one time delivered to our doorstep at home. FWIW the cost of this 'premium' service was $18 up front and $18/week.

We resorted to a friendly neighbor who would text when we received something, and forward when asked. However, they've recently bought an RV and are enjoying time in it. So, now I have to look at alternatives. I've talked with the local UPS store, and would have no issue opening a mailbox and having them forward. However, I don't have confidence in USPS forwarding a block away to the UPS store.
 
camperAL said:
Before I go on a trip I copy all my bills that I pay by mail.
Click to expand...

AFAIK I have exactly one bill that needs to be paid by mail and it's an annual real estate tax bill. Everything else is either automatically deducted when do or can easily be paid online.
 
Tom said:
I've talked with the local UPS store, and would have no issue opening a mailbox and having them forward. However, I don't have confidence in USPS forwarding a block away to the UPS store.
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Tom, just go online to usps.com (not .gov) and fill out a Moving/Mail Forwarding request, as if you're permanently moving to the UPS store.  It will cost $1 billed to a credit card as a verification check.  This gets all of your mail sent there for up to a year, then it expires.

The PO will send you a confirmation number via email.  When you return from your trip you can go back on the USPS web site and use this number to cancel the "permanent"  mail forwarding and everything will return to normal.  Works for me.
 
Thanks Lou. The long-term forwarding is handled by a regional office (Oakland in our case), which might make it more reliable than the local post office.

However, I wonder if we might have issues when, during summer months, we move to our summer home in WY, then to OH, and back to WY, before returning home. Timing of cutoff for one location and turn on for the next might be an issue, so I might need to do the changes early to avoid having stuff delivered to a location we've already left (been there, done that). Apologies if I sound paranoid, but I have no confidence in USPS. 

Do they also forward parcels? While we're at our WY location, there are different mailing addresses for letters and parcels, but I should be able to work that out with the UPS store.
 
Tom, using forwarding to the UPS store means the PO only has one address to worry about ... you then contact the store to get your mail sent on to you.  Usually this means contacting them for a single shipment at a time so there's no issue with mail being sent automatically to an address you've left.

The store sends all of your mail to you in a single envelope or box ... not trickling in one by one as it's received from the Post Office.  If a shipment does have to be sent in multiple boxes the store can mark them "Box 1 of 4", etc. so you can be sure you get all of them before you move on.

It doesn't matter if you're travelling to WY, Ohio or Timbuktu.  Just start the forwarding to the UPS store when you leave, then cancel it when you return home.

I don't know if the Post Office forwards parcels.  It might be simpler to have parcels sent directly to the UPS store, then let them forward them to you.  When you're home between trips, just go to the store and pick them up.
 
Thanks Lou, that all makes sense, and we might just try that for our winter trip to OH.

Thinking about it, parcels shouldn't be an issue for forwarding; We normally have them delivered to whichever remote address we're at.
 
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