Mail forwarding

Escapees mail service in Livingston TX.

Mail Forwarding posts

Private mail forwarding companies are not part of the USPS. You can set up a private mailbox and then call or email to make arrangements for forwarding that mail to another address (such as general delivery at a post office). You can also make arrangements with the post office to have your mail forwarded to the private mailbox. You can count on the reliability of the private companies. They do this for a living. You cannot count on the reliability of the USPS. I made numerous visits and calls trying to make sure my mail was forwarded but that only happened in a haphazard fashion.

Many of the mail forwarding companies are located in Texas, Florida or South Dakota. Due to tax and other considerations many full time RVers establish residency in one of those States and also use that State to include their mailing address.

USPS claims they will forward your mail, once a week, for $20.

We use mail hold and a friend that weeds out the junk and sends us anything that looks worth sending. After the 30 days of hold he picks it up and then we restart the hold for another 30 days. We have only done this for 60 days so I am not sure if USPS will let us keep doing it for 6 months or so.

We provide him the USPS prepaid envelopes and an address. When he goes on vacation we keep his dog for him so it is free to us except for the envelopes.

jchouchins60 wrote:
I had heard of a service based in Texas that will forward USPS mail for a nominal charge. Anybody know anything about this? Any other solutions to handling mail forwarding? We already have our bills online.

We are about to leave on a 2 to 4 month trip away from home.

Do you still have your home and intend to return there? Then use your local post office.

Your local post office will forward your mail anywhere you want for free for 4 month increments. You can also do it on line. Which is what I think they prefer. I just kept renewing it every 4 months on line.
https://www.usps.com/manage/forward.htm
Use the free forwarding mail NOT the Premium One.

Are you staying in one spot on your trip?

If not,
Then use the "free" post office forwarding and have it sent to a UPS STORE of your choosing. They will give you a real address to use to provide to your local po office for them to forward to.

The UPS STORE service you have to pay for but they, with just a phone call will forward your mail where ever and whenever you want while you are on the road.

I used them for 4 years while I was on the road IMHO I think it is the best service to use and they give you a real address if you choose to use it permanently on the road for credit cards and banks etc that will not allow you to use a po box.

Note they are NOT part of the gov postal service. They are a mail forwarding franchise found all over the usa.
https://www.theupsstore.com/

rockhillmanor wrote:

jchouchins60 wrote:
I had heard of a service based in Texas that will forward USPS mail for a nominal charge. Anybody know anything about this? Any other solutions to handling mail forwarding? We already have our bills online.

We are about to leave on a 2 to 4 month trip away from home.

You local post office will forward your mail anywhere you want for free for 4 month increments. You can also do it on line. Which is what I think they prefer. I just kept renewing it every 4 months on line.
https://www.usps.com/manage/forward.htm
Use the free forwarding mail NOT the Premium One.

Are you staying in one spot on your trip?

If not,
then use the "free" post office forwarding and have it sent to a UPS STORE of your choosing. They will give you a real address to use.

That service you have to pay for but they, with just a phone call will forward your mail where ever and whenever you want while you are on the road.

I used them for 4 years while I was on the road IMHO I think it is the best service to use and they give you a real address if you choose to use it permanently on the road for credit cards and banks etc that will not allow you to use a po box.

Note they are NOT part of the gov postal service. They are a mail forwarding franchise found all over the usa.
https://www.theupsstore.com/

I've used the UPS Store for all my mail for 6 years. They will take anything, USPS, UPS, FedEx, whatever. I usually email when I stop for awhile and have them send everything to General Delivery at the nearest Post Office.

I used a virtual mailbox that allows you to forward the mail to their location, and when it arrives you can request to have it scanned and view it online. If you want to have an actual letter forwarded to where you are you can request that service for a few more dollars each letter.

There is another approach that works well also. Kill the snail mail at its source. There is almost nothing that cannot be handled electronically without paper.

JimK-NY wrote:
There is another approach that works well also. Kill the snail mail at its source. There is almost nothing that cannot be handled electronically without paper.

I've been trying to do that for years but I keep running into the "almost" part. There are a couple of important bills that come from paper obsessed organizations I just can't do without. Prepayment solves some but I have one that won't even let me do that.