Mail when full timing

Our Experience here in San Diego CA required a Permanent Home Address for our Insurance purposes and other legal documents. We were lucky to be able to use our Daughter's address. One thing that you want to make clear to your RV and Auto Insurer is that you ARE FULL TIMING, rates and coverage are different than if it is parked somewhere and used a few months out of the year. I have not read the other options here, but for us it was less complicated for DMV, BANKING, INVESTMENTS AND ALL.

msmith1199 wrote:

donn0128 wrote:
Mail forewording services are kind of old school. Most folks now days do all their bill paying online. I can get notified by email when a bill is due. After 11 weeks I had three pieces of useful mail. The rest of a pretty good sized box was garbage.

What if your bank needs to mail you a new atm card? What if your credit card company needs to send you a new credit card? Where does DMV mail your new drivers license when it's ready? Mail forwarding services may be old school, but there are some things you just have to use the mail for.

It's worth noting too, that the USPS will NOT forward those ATM, credit cards, etc, if the sender uses the common "Do Not Forward" instruction on the envelope. The commercial remailers are not subject to those rules when they are your address of record.

donn0128 wrote:
Mail forewording services are kind of old school. Most folks now days do all their bill paying online. I can get notified by email when a bill is due. After 11 weeks I had three pieces of useful mail. The rest of a pretty good sized box was garbage.

What if your bank needs to mail you a new atm card? What if your credit card company needs to send you a new credit card? Where does DMV mail your new drivers license when it's ready? Mail forwarding services may be old school, but there are some things you just have to use the mail for.

I had my home post office hold my mail until I get to my destination then I have it forwarded.

Full-timers need an address. The mail forwarding gives you that address for driver's license, registrations, insurance, government, financial, etc.

donn0128 wrote:
Mail forewording services are kind of old school. Most folks now days do all their bill paying online. I can get notified by email when a bill is due. After 11 weeks I had three pieces of useful mail. The rest of a pretty good sized box was garbage.

Unfortunately, if you are getting 3 pieces of useful mail every 11 weeks, you need a mail forwarding service.

Try as I might, I can't get the federal government to e-mail me everything instead of using postal mail. I also have one vendor that mails a package to me every two months. Since I don't know exactly when they'll send it or where I'll be, I have it sent to my private mail box at St. Brendan's Isle. It's also helpful when I order from Amazon and it's not prime. Magazines are another area where many don't have online versions or it's easier to read the physical copies. My health insurance sometimes mails me things despite my opting in to e-mail notifications.

Sadly, there is no getting away from a physical mailbox for me at this time. But having my mail scanned and sent out occaisionally works great. I think I'll keep the service even when I eventually get off the road.

Escapees will ship your mail however you like. USPS, FedEx or UPS. I have never found a place I could not get mail shipped except a couple of campground that would not allow us to send it there.
Doing nearly everything we need to do online allows us to call for mail once or twice a month for the few things we simply can't get the vendor to do over the Internet.

We use Americas Mailbox in Box Elder, which we made our domicile state. They will do everything except renew your driver's license which you must do. No State Income tax and 4% sales tax. They have several options relative to what mail gets forwarded to you...you make the choice depending on which plan you choose. We've been satisfied customers for eight years.

As with any mail forwarding service, you get charged for the amount of mail sent out...the bigger the package the more they charge in postal fees. We go paperless whenever possible including most magazines..Elks, FMCA, Thousand Trails etc.

That said, as a full timer you also need to look at the other end of the chain. Many campgrounds will no longer accept USPS mail and/or they charge a fee for doing so. We go on line to the USPS site and have our mail forwarded to us in our name, C/O General Delivery. Not every post office accepts GD so you have to check to make sure the one nearest you will do so....best of luck...Dennis

Ed_Gee wrote:
One factor not yet mentioned, is having a mail store and forward service that provides you with instant ability to view the mail they receive over the internet. You can then chose what they keep, what they destroy, and what they should forward immediately to you. Also having the ability to request they open and scan the contents of mail is a plus. I find such a service as St. Brendan's Isle mail forwarding service in Florida to be extremely useful.

+1 SBI does a great job, helps you set up FL domicile if you wish.

Switching everything to electronic that you can. Paperless statements, statements that go to your bank, automatic payments, etc. After that we use our daughter's address. Most junk mail will send only one piece to each address, so it has not increased her load of junk mail. She just throws it in a box and we pick it up when we can, and she has a mental list to senders which might need immediate attention. Remember your children owe you ;-)