Recently retired and just returned from a 6 week trip. My DW and I would love to do more of this. But we have a house as well. We talk about selling and living in the RV. So now to my question. What do you do about an address? Do you need one for tax purposes. What do you do about mail. If your on the move all the time how does this work. We are not ones to stay put for a long length of time.Dan.

We use a mail forwarding service in Florida which is our permanent/legal address. Go to www.goodsammailservice.com to check it out. We can check on line to see what mail is there and have it sent when, how,and where we want. They also provide scanning service and will trash mail you don't want. THere is lots of good information about the service on their site. There are also other good services available in other states.

We use Escapees. They do mail forwarding, tax, voting and so much more.

We rely on America's Mailbox in Rapid City SD. They provide us with a "residential" address we use for voter and vehicle registration and driver's licenses. They also accumulate our mail, discard all the junk, and then ship the good stuff to us whenever we ask, which is generally once a month around the 15th. We also don't like to stay anywhere very long - 2-3 weeks is our typical maximum, but we'll make sure to be somewhere long enough around the 15th for our shipment to find us.We chose SD as our domicile state primarily for the tax benefit, but find that our insurance rates are also a tad lower than other no-tax states. Plus, there's no annual vehicle inspection required.America's Mailbox website has lots of info, as does the Escapees website.Good luck and have fun - that's what it's all about.al

When we were full timing we used Alternative Resources (http://www.alternativeresources.net) out of Sioux Falls, SD. At the time we were living in Wisconsin and it was and still is a high tax state, after looking at all the states that we could use we picked South Dakota, but there are several states that if you are full timing can reduce your taxes. The following are some advantages of SD. * No State Income Tax* No Personal Property Tax* 3% Excise Tax on net Purchase of Vehicles, RV's* Ranks 47th in Lowest Private Passenger Car Insurance Rates * No State Inheritance Tax* No Intangible Tax on Investments* Low Vehicle License Fees* No Vehicle Inspections• South Dakota per capita taxes lowest in Nation (Sioux Falls Argus Leader 7/27/01)

You will need an address for:Tax FilingAuto InsuranceVehicle RegistrationMedical/Health InsuranceBankingVoter Registrationother things that I've forgotten.As mentioned above there are many companies that provide mail forwarding service. The majority of full timers use either Texas, Florida or South Dakota as their state of legal residence.Best advice I can give you is once you do your research and pick a service and address that meets your needs, then use it for EVERYTHING. Don't try to cherry pick the best rates and costs by using one address for one thing and another address for another item. It is too confusing and can lead to too many questions about whether your intent was to be a "fulltimer" or if your intent was to evade/avoid paying taxes.

Question for full timers | Good Sam Community

26 Replies

tohare
Explorer
May 28, 2014
regarding banking, We have kept our NYS credit union, with no problems even though our domicile is Florida. You will get very good at on line banking, transferring monies on line, and using your debit card to purchase things and getting extra cash. We use St. Brendan's Isle for our mail service and they helped with vehicle registration, drivers lic., and voting registration
kakampers
Explorer
May 25, 2014
Another vote for My Home Address since we went full time in 2005....

As for owning property in one state and claimimg residency in another...sure, everything else is considered a second home or vacation property. You can own as many properties as you can afford or desire. In our case we own property in TX but claim SD as our state of residence and we do NOT own property in SD.
Texas_Flash
Explorer
May 23, 2014
We use Escapees. This is our third year and have not had any issues
Dustytuu
Explorer
May 23, 2014
Don't remember if I posted this before.
We use Escapees and our state of residence is Texas. We vote there, driver license, vehicle plates and etc.
Vehicle plates are much less there than in Colorado where we did have our residence. We sold our house 6 years ago and said our goodbyes to Colorado. In Colorado our vehicle plates cost us about $3,000 a year for 5th wheel, truck and SUV, Texas these same vehicles are about $300 a year for all of them. No state taxes in Texas either. Our mail is sent there and Escapees sends our mail when we tell them. Unless we are someplace for 4 months or so, and they send it every 2 weeks. Works for us. We pay most of our bills on line.
retispcsi
Explorer
May 21, 2014
We are hopefully going to be fulltimers in about 3 1/2 wks. We are winding it down and waiting for the closing on the house. I don't count on it until I actually have the money in hand. Anyway we are Fla. residents and will use one of the Fla mailbox services. This is convenient for us. Also check on drivers license requirements in the other states. In Fla. you can drive any size RV without any special endorsements. I understand that SD and Texas are good also so whatever you choose you will probally be happy.
MTPockets1
Explorer
May 21, 2014
2chiefsRus wrote:
msgtord wrote:
Can you own a home in one state and claim residence in another?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is you may not want to do so depending upon what being a non-resident will do to your property taxes on the home. It also depends upon whether you still live in the home part of the year.

One scenario where you might own property in one state but be a resident in another = you were working in one state where you own a home and then your job transfers you to another state. You move to state 2, but the home in state 1 is for sale but hasn't sold yet.

We owned two homes, each in a different state. Both states offered a Homestead rate for property tax calculation which is a discounted rate. We could only claim one of them and the higher rate applied on the other. You can own homes wherever you want.
MTPockets1
Explorer
May 21, 2014
restlesswind wrote:
2chiefsRus wrote:
Forgot to mention that you can have your mail forwarding service send a package of your mail to General Delivery at any US Post office. It is best to pick a small town that only has one small post office in it so your mail package doesn't get lost in a big facility. You just go in to the Post Office and show your ID to pick up your mail. They will hold your mail for up to 30 days if I recall correctly. Even after the 30 days, they simply return your mail to the sender (your mail forwarding service).

Good advice so far.One exception,check with the post office prior to having Gen Del mail sent there.Not all post offices accept Gen Del mail.You can get the info from the internet.
When I use General Delivery, I call that branch to alert them. They usually tell me thanks for the heads up, saying it does help.
MTPockets1
Explorer
May 21, 2014
restlesswind wrote:
2chiefsRus wrote:
Forgot to mention that you can have your mail forwarding service send a package of your mail to General Delivery at any US Post office. It is best to pick a small town that only has one small post office in it so your mail package doesn't get lost in a big facility. You just go in to the Post Office and show your ID to pick up your mail. They will hold your mail for up to 30 days if I recall correctly. Even after the 30 days, they simply return your mail to the sender (your mail forwarding service).

Good advice so far.One exception,check with the post office prior to having Gen Del mail sent there.Not all post offices accept Gen Del mail.You can get the info from the internet.
When I use GEneral Delivery, I call that branch to alert them. They usually tell me thanks for the heads up, saying it does help.
2chiefsRus
Explorer
May 21, 2014
msgtord wrote:
Can you own a home in one state and claim residence in another?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is you may not want to do so depending upon what being a non-resident will do to your property taxes on the home. It also depends upon whether you still live in the home part of the year.

One scenario where you might own property in one state but be a resident in another = you were working in one state where you own a home and then your job transfers you to another state. You move to state 2, but the home in state 1 is for sale but hasn't sold yet.
msgtord
Explorer
May 21, 2014
Can you own a home in one state and claim residence in another?