mail forwarding

We full-timed for over 10 years and during that time we used mail forwarding services. For the past (almost) 9 years We have now been snow birds, spending 7 months a year in southern AL (where we are legal residents)in the winter and 5 months in MI during the summer. We continue to use a mail forwarding service as we also do some traveling in our motorhome, mostly on our way north in the spring and on the way south in the fall. Most of the mail forwarding services do a good job but we think that Escapees is the best, having used them for most of the past 19 years.

When we are up north in the summer, we have any mail that comes to our AL address forwarded to our TX mail forwarding address and it eventually catches up with us. Anyway, this system works for us.

first off, why is a mail forwarding question in the Dinghy Towing Forum ??

Your choices for mail forwarding are basically, USPS, professional mail forwarding, or friend/relative. If you no longer trust the USPS, then yes you most likely need to use a professional mail forwarder based in Fla.
I use a combination of each. I was originally a fulltime RV'er, and as I transitioned to part timer, I ended up with 3 part time seasonal homes in 3 diff states. I still use my original mail forwarding company in SD (where I also have a home) as my primary address for all important mail, but I also use the USPS for Temp Forwarding of my local mail at the other 2 houses for part of each year.
While I agree there are many incompetent & poorly trained employees at the USPS, if you keep after them, they eventually get it right. My usual issue with them is the expiration date of the Temp Forward, each year they continue to forward mail for weeks after the temp expiration date, until I complain 2 or 3 times to the local Postmaster. But I don't trust them with anything critical, that mail all goes to Americas Mailbox, which has never failed to be 100% dependable. Yes, I pay extra for that, but to me its well worth the cost.
Even when shopping online, I always try to avoid shipping via USPS. I'll gladly pay extra for expedited shipping, not because I'm in a rush, but because that usually helps avoid dealing with the incompetent USPS.

Not sure I would trust the post office to do much of anything. Living rural I maintain a PMB in town to make sure I get most of my mail. I can't imagine how bad the postal service must be in large cities. When we lived in CA the mailman could read numbers but street mames confused him. The supervisor told me it would improve because our mailman enrolled in an English class. I wish they delivered 1st class mail as well as they deliver trash mail.

We've been using MY RV Mail out of Crestview Florida. We know that every Wednesday they forward our mail to us and we get it by Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. I can change that forwarding address as late as Tuesday evening to get it at my forthcomning location.

TimfmCT wrote:
I'd be interested to know your experiences on mail forwarding if you are located 50/50 in two locations.
I ask because we did the temporary US post office change of address and it was a disaster. The post office did some thing wrong and our address permanently changed..... and we didn't know it. Luckily one of our insurance companies sent us a note confirming our change of address. That was almost two years ago. Yesterday, when I renewed one of our membership type stores our address was still listed as a Livingston, TX.
We live in Connecticut.
last year we did the "premier" USPS forwarding and it cost $17 A WEEK To do that. To do it for six months is just too expensive.
I ask because we want to be official residents, and stay (six months and a day)in Florida, but come back to our home in CT for the five months and 29 days. The mail situation is actually discouraging us from doing that.
BTW: missing a "communication" from the IRS a few years ago was a bad situation, because we missed their deadline.
People must split their living location 50/50. Do they have to pay for mail forwarding to do it?

while our situation is not quite the same as yours we are on the road twice a year for 3-months at a time. for the last dozen years or so we have taken the issue of mail delivery and forwarding out of the hands of the USPS by having all of our bills switched to electronic delivery. we get email notification of a bill coming due about the same time when we would get a paper bill. most of those bills are paid via automatic debit from our bank account and the rest are paid through the company's website.

for those very, very rare pieces of mail that must still be manually handled my bro-in-law, who lives in our home while we are on the he road, will call us, then open the mail and if we need to see it he will scan and then email to us. that hasn't happened in quite a while, though.

for the record, my bro-in-law has *his* mail temporarily forwarded by the USPS from his home in California to our home in Illinois each time he comes here. he's never reported having a problem.

good luck.

I have had a home in Maine (4 months) and a home in Florida (8 months) for the past 25 years. I have all my mail sent to FL and USPS temporary mail forwarding from my FL address to the Maine address. In 25 years it has worked fine, no problems, and at zero cost to me. Either I was very lucky for 25 years, or the OP was unlucky (once?). I suggest that he try it again based on how well it has worked for me. For more certainty, go in person to your post office and speak to the Postmaster in advance to be sure it gets done right. (Although I have not had to do that in 25 years).

This works only for first class mail, not magazines and such, which are only forwarded for the first 30 or 60 days. I change my subscription mailing address on magazines twice each year. You can usually do this online.

If you are traveling by RV and changing address frequently, then the above solution will not work, in which case private mail forwarding is probably your best bet.

Get a PMB at any place like Postal Annex, and use that as your mailing address. Call them whenever you want your mail sent to wherever you are. Costs a few bucks a month plus shipping.

I've been doing a temporary change of address for 12 years. It's free. Never had a problem. No junk mail is forwarded, only 1st class.

We've been doing the temporary change of address to PO Box in the south for about 12 winters now. About half of those have gone smooth. The rest have had a problem. For those of us that hold a PO Box year round when our stop date comes they tape over the back side of the PO Box. We have had years where our mail started coming to the PO, but the tape was still on the box so they sent the mail back north. One winter we had mail go around in a circle for over 3 weeks. The fix to the problem is now I call the post office down south and ask them to open my box, which you should not have to do.

Mail Forwarding
RV quick tips -mail

Does not belong in Dinghy forum.