Mail Forwarding Service

[jplante4]

Which one do you use? We're not full-timing, just cutting out for the winter. I've looked at the FMCA service, but it appears to be set up for full-timers (no S&B).

Will the USPS just hold mail until you tell them where to send it?

If you use a service, do you actually change your address for your mail or do you have the USPS forward it for 6 months?

I'm getting most all the bills set up with online banking, but there's still a lot of mail (most of it junk) in the box every day.

[Free_Range_Huma]

No, there actually is some mail that *cannot* be forwarded. It's always official and always the stuff you want most :(. Says "Do not forward" right on the envelope.

[C-Bears]

We actually now have two addresses. One is our S&B in Florida, and the other address is our son's home in Illinois. Our son's address in Illinois is what we have used while full timing and prior to recently purchasing the Florida home.

We just went to the post office and filled out the mail forwarding card. They told us that ALL first class mail would be forwarded from Florida to Illinois. I could be wrong but I assume that would include tax papers and anything else that was first class.

[Vette_Racer]

Just remember, anything with "do not forward or address correction required" will NOT be forwarded with a temp forwarding address. If you expect to receive tax info, new bank cards or other important mail, IT WILL NOT BE FORWARDED! Been there and have the T shirt. My W2's was sent back, my tax info for my mortgage was sent back, my replacement CC was sent back, and the next thing I knew was when we started getting phone calls wanting our new address to send these items to. All we did use put in a temp forwarding address with the USPS to a PMB at our local UPS store. BEWARE!

[Naio]

I'm tempted by the RV places and their scans, but I think I am going to go with the small business mailbox shop down the street from my S&B.

I had a nightmare situation last winter with a very valuable package going back and forth across the Atlantic 4 times, going off tracking for weeks at a time and reappearing in another country, etc. This made me aware that forwarding does not always work well -- so I want my mail to be somewhere I can physically get to it or send a friend, not in another part of the US :).

IME the USPS forwarding system is a disaster. There is no way they could cope with forwarding my mail to another state temporarily, and then delivering to my S&B again in the summer. Part of the problem is that my S&B is on the route they use to train newbies :(.

[alfredmay]

If you do anything with your local PO make sure you get a phone number. Numbers are not usually listed anywhere and if you have a problem you will want to contact them. Ask me how I know this 🙂

[Clay_L]

The year we snowbirded and the year before that, we had a TEMPORARY mail forwarding done to our mail forwarding service for any mail going to our new address and new mailbox.
Worked well for us.
Note that you want a temporary forwarding not permanent. It was good for up to 6 months and I think an extension could be done on line although I didn't do that - in fact since were gone less than 6 months I went on line and had the temp forwarding discontinued.

[GMandJM]

USPS will forward only First Class mail - not junk mail/presort. They will forward magazines for 90 days.

We use MyRvMail. They will set up a PMB for you and then you put in a forward request with USPS to have your mail forwarded there. Mail accumulates until you tell MyRVMail where to send it.

GoodSam members get a discount.

You can go on line and view what mail is in your box and tell them to shred anything you don't want forwarded to you.

We only change the address on our magagzine subscriptions to the MyRvMail address since we're gone longer than 90 days USPS will forward. We also change the address for our on-line meds so that is sent directly to our MyRVMail address.

If you really need every piece of junk mail, USPS has a weekly forwarding service. It's a little pricey.

[accumack]

We use escapees with great success.

[ljr]

I have a box at the UPS Store. Whenever I stop somewhere for awhile they box up whatever they have and send it to me.

[Johno02]

Our USPS office will hold our mail for up to 3 months with permission from the Postmaster. We also have a good friend that will pick ours up at the post office for us. If you have a good friend or a relative in your area, that is an option that works for us.

[Trackrig]

As for stopping the junk mail, I've managed to stop almost all of ours by simply calling the 800 phone #s on it. You have to do this several months in advance as most of the junk mail is printed up to three months in advance and already sitting on pallets to go the Post Office at the correct date.

Sometimes junk mailers don't put a phone # on their junk and you have to find it on the internet, but most mailing do have a phone #.

The only mail I haven't been able to stop is when someone like a local pizza shop has the Post Office send out their junk mail telling them to mail it to everyone in the surrounding zip code. Since there's no actual mailing list and the Post Office's computer systems are so out of date, they have no way of blocking specific addresses.

Bill

[Second_Chance]

USPS will hold mail for up to 30 days for a regular mail hold. We use the Escapees mail services (based in Livingston, TX). When we hit the road full-time next month, we'll just call or email to tell them where we're going to be for a few weeks (or a month or two) and they'll forward the mail. You can choose what classes of mail and we'll just have first class forwarded.