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Bernie,

The way you described it would involve two forwarding steps (and associated delays) - P.O. forward to FMCA, then FMCA forward to your 'away' destination.

I was trying to understand if Fred & Daisy used FMCA as a 'home' address and, if they were home, told FMCA to forward the mail to their home, just like they'd tell FMCA to forward mail to some 'away' destination.
 
Tom

This is getting confusing but I think you are right :-\ We used FMCA for temporary mail forwarding when we were on the road for the summer. All of our mail was addressed to our home address and the PO forwarded it to FMCA. A number of people use FMCA as "their address" and all of their mail goes directly to Cincinnati. Then you pay the postage to forward it to you wherever you want it delivered. If you are in a "permanent" home, you just give FMCA a forward until changed notice and everything keeps coming there.
 
Thanks Bernie. Both situations you describe now understood.
 
Tom:

Yes, FMCA forwards to our "home", since we have not changed any addresses.  Except for the local utilities, etc., needed for the house, all else goes to FMCA.  We try to pay the utilities by automatic withdrawals.  We have no problem with that since they are basically the same every month.  We do the same with some of the other bills.  We did not change any of our "other" mailing addresses, (which have the FMCA address), since we have not expected to spend that much time at "home".  And since we've retired, we have few bills to worry about.

All we do is tell FMCA where we want our mail sent.  When we are home for an extended time, we just call them when we want them to start delivering the mail there and tell them to continue to that address until we call them again.  Right now, they are holding our mail for a couple of weeks until we tell them where next to mail it.  It is not, nor ever has been, a big issue for us.  When on the road, we usually have an idea on Thurs. (our last day to call them for a place to mail it to), where we will be on Mon.  Only once or twice did we have to wait an extra day, when WE made the mistake and had the mail sent to General Delivery in a major city, only to find out they have different zip codes for the General Delivery in Major Cities.  We then had to find the one post office that was holding it.  (That was early on in our full-timing experience)  We soon learned to direct it to suburb, or small town out side the major city for quicker delivery.  Need to be careful of those zip codes.  We carry a small book full of them, but now it's easy to go on-line to find them.

Anyway, it has been very easy for us both on and off the road, using FMCA.

Daisy
 
Daisy, where have you found the general delivery zip codes online?  I've been all over the USPS web site and have never been able to find them.  I can find every post office, but nothing that says if a give PS accepts GD.
 
Sorry Ned, I misled you.  I did not mean that you can find JUST General Delivery zip codes on-line, but ANY post office zip code.  We now know to look for a small town/suburb and use that P. O. INSTEAD of the large major city.    However, that has not been a need for us in recent years, since we tend to stick to the out-back regions of the western states now, and generally find small towns to ship our mail to.  If we know which campground we're going to, AND have RESERVATIONS there, we'll have the mail shipped directly to that particular campground.  Such as Portal at Moab, and Thousand Lakes at Torrey, etc. If we get get up to Vernal again, we'll use the P. O. there, since we'll probably stay at the state park up there again.  Campgrounds have always been courteous in that regard, unless they are a government one.   


Daisy
 
If you get the post office zip code directory, it will identify the zip which handles GD in each city. I haven't seen that detail online, but you can stop in any post office and they are supposed to have the zip directory available for reference. Or call the PO and ask them for the GD zip in whatever city you need.

Also, you can use the zip+4 standard coding for General Delivery, which is xxxxx-9999. For a big city, I THINK you can use the main PO zip and append the 9999 and be assured you have addressed it to General Delivery. But how you find out which PO that is without going to one of them and asking is another story!

Except for a few special situations, we alway use Daisy's approach: pick a small town post office.
 
We have found that not all post offices will accept general delivery so the trick is finding the one(s) in an area that will.  I don't know why they aren't listed on the USPS web site and I can't seeing carrying another heavy book on board just for that purpose.  We will have mail sent to a campground if they will allow it, but sometimes we don't know exactly where we'll be stopping and GD is the only option.

The xxxxx-9999 doesn't always work.  Sometimes it -9998 or no +4 at all so you have to know exactly what the zip code is.  We had to go to 2 different post offices in Fairbanks this summer because the zip code wasn't what we were told it was.
 
Rand McNally publishes a book on zip codes. If there are multiple listings for a city we will call and find out which post office will accept general delivery. Then we have our mail sent to that location. It really is fairly simple once you get used to the process. We only had one problem in all our time traveling. We missed the town where we wanted the mail by one digit. Fortunately it was only a few miles apart and didn't create a problem. Had a nice lunch at a Cattleman's restaurant recommended by George Akers. :)
 
Thank you all for the great information which has brought up a new question for you.  I am a veteran and because of it I am tax exempt for property here in Utah.  Meaning I do not have to pay the property tax on my RV or car and truck.  If and when we go full time and say we join the Excapees and use them for mail forwarding and possibly home base.  Do they have a similar program there for veterans?  Someone also said they can get lower insurance for their vehicles there.  What is the story on that.  Is Texas a good state for insurance rates?  I also read in another forum today that in order to fulltime one would need at least 3 to 4 thousand dollars a month to survive.  If thats the case we are set back from 18 months to possibly 2 or 3 years before we can hit the road full time.  We have just got to much going out to debt right now.    And figure to total payoff of debt at about 4 year.  Not counting our motor home.
 
Hi Lee,

Welcome to the forum. I'll let others answer the TX questions. You don't need $3-4K/month to live full time but it sure would help. :) RVing is not as inexpensive as many think but it isn't that bad. It really depends upon how you want to live. If you are traveling constantly it will be more expensive than if you own a lot like we do and can spend some time "at home". If you own your RV instead of the bank it will be very much less expensive. I'm sure others will have more specifics as to average costs.
 
Thanks for the reply Jim.  I went in today and lowered the sell price on our home by 5000 to see if that might help it to sell quicker.  If we sell it that will give us an easy 700 a month available for use.  As for owning our RV it will be a few years.  Just bought it last year on a 20 year loan.  I also was accepted today for a summer volunteer job in Dinosaurland, Colorado.  So that gives us a chance to get away and see and do something new for the summer and not have to spend much money. 
 
Hi Lee,

Workcamping is a great way to provide for a spot to stay with no expense and a small amount of work to pay for it. Several members here workcamp. Once on the road I'm sure you will find ways to decrease your costs while increasing your experiences.
 
utmtman said:
Thank you all for the great information which has brought up a new question for you.   I am a veteran and because of it I am tax exempt for property here in Utah.  Meaning I do not have to pay the property tax on my RV or car and truck.   If and when we go full time and say we join the Excapees and use them for mail forwarding and possibly home base.  Do they have a similar program there for veterans?  Someone also said they can get lower insurance for their vehicles there.  What is the story on that.  Is Texas a good state for insurance rates?  I also read in another forum today that in order to fulltime one would need at least 3 to 4 thousand dollars a month to survive.  If thats the case we are set back from 18 months to possibly 2 or 3 years before we can hit the road full time.   We have just got to much going out to debt right now.    And figure to total payoff of debt at about 4 year.  Not counting our motor home.
Click to expand...

Texas has no property tax on vehicles owned by individuals.  Annual registration fees on a motor home are in the $325 range, and cars/trucks are $65.  Certain veterans: Purple Heart recipients, Pearl Harbor Survivors, former POWs, and Medal of Honor winners get free ($3 actually) registration on one vehicle.  Needless to say, I put that on the MH and paid for plates for the SUV.

No state income tax as well.  Property taxes on homes, however, are outrageous, even by California standards.

Insurance rates in Texas vary by counties.  Livingston is in a cheap county compared to Houston or Dallas or San Antonio.  I don't know how it compares to other states.
 
Thanks for that information Curt.  We will be keeping notes on this information for future references.
 
I talk to a neighbor who travels a lot and he said he was with PA one time and he said that everywhere he went to use it he could not get into the sites because they were full, even when he called in advance.  He told me in three or four years of having it he only managed to stay in one of the parks once.  Makes me a little leary. 
 
utmtman said:
I talk to a neighbor who travels a lot and he said he was with PA one time and he said that everywhere he went to use it he could not get into the sites because they were full, even when he called in advance.  He told me in three or four years of having it he only managed to stay in one of the parks once.  Makes me a little leary. 
Click to expand...

We've had PA for 5-6 years now. Reading the campground descriptions and calling in advance if necessary, never had an issue getting into a campground. Many have specific limitations outlined in the guide book, but we've been very happy with PA.
 
In some popular areas, the PA parks will have limited space during their peak seasons.  We use PA often when traveling and have little trouble getting sites.  We note in the directory if a park has limitations and work around them.  It only takes a couple of nights a year in PA parks to save the membership fee.
 
Lee,

We have used PA almost every time we travel for the winter. There are times when one might not get a site but, for us, it has been rare. They do usually have restrictions on how long you can stay at the PA rate but we were able to take a one week limit and stay for two. It's up to the manager of the park. Even if you can't use it everytime you will get your membership fee back with just a very few stays. One can also not purchase until they are ready to hit the road. We didn't buy it this year because we planned on staying in FL at our site. If we head west next year we'll join again.
 
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