Mail Service? What's available?

[Jayco-noslide]

What's the best, best value mail service for when you will be away for 2 months or more? One that you can direct where and when to send your mail and don't have to join something for a year or more.

[rk911]

perhaps the question ought to be...has anyone dropped their mail service provider and chosen another? if so which providers were involved and why was the change made?

[ependydad]

We have been using St. Brendan’s Isle mail service for a few years now. Totally happy with them.

http://SBImailservice.com/

[Community Alumni]

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
Dakota post offers month to month as an option.
www.dakotapost.net

DITTO

JimR

[Dtank]

rk911 wrote:

Jayco-noslide wrote:
What's the best, best value mail service for when you will be away for 2 months or more? One that you can direct where and when to send your mail and don't have to join something for a year or more.

based on reviews we selected America's Mailbox in Box Elder, SD. so far the folks there have been very EZ to deal with.

X-2

Call - ask questions, get answers.

:C

[rk911]

Jayco-noslide wrote:
What's the best, best value mail service for when you will be away for 2 months or more? One that you can direct where and when to send your mail and don't have to join something for a year or more.

based on reviews we selected America's Mailbox in Box Elder, SD. so far the folks there have been very EZ to deal with.

[wa8yxm]

Jayco-noslide wrote:
What's the best, best value mail service for when you will be away for 2 months or more? One that you can direct where and when to send your mail and don't have to join something for a year or more.

For up to six months.. The post office. Visit your post office and have a chat with the clerk.

They can hold your mail there for up to six months and forward as you request. You pay only the postage for the re-mail.

[magicbus]

We leave for 2 months and have a friend empty our mailbox every couple of days and throw everything in a box for when we get home. My wife signed up for the free USPS service where they email her each morning a scan of every first class piece of mail to be delivered. This way we know if we need to deal with something important and have our friend open or send something.

Dave

[Rover_Bill]

Take a look at Mailbox Forwarding

They are a month-to-month service that lets you view ALL incoming envelopes online free. You can have them open your letters and send you a PDF scan of all pages in the letter usually overnight. You can also have them send you your mail as often as you want for a small fee above the shipping cost (multiple options, USPS, UPS, FedEX, etc) if you need the original letter.

They are cheaper then most other mail forwarding services because they do not provide legal service to help you setup a "home address" for voting, drivers licences, vehicle registration, or income tax services.

[Thunder_Mountai]

We have a do everything UPS/FEDEX, copy, pack etc. business in our small town. She also offers a service for snowbirds where she picks up your mail at the PO, sorts out the junk and puts the rest in a Priority envelope and sends it where you ask. She charges $15 per month plus forwarding postage. Works great for us since we move around to various locations during the winter. She saves all the junk for us to look at when we return home in the spring. You might try calling around where you live.

[Janss]

Lwiddis, if you're asking in response to my post....my neighbor can see all my mail, can't think of anything too personal. But a couple times, I had to get the original item, like a certificate or ballot or something.

[Lwiddis]

What mail wouldn’t a trusted neighbor be allowed to open, scan and send?

[Janss]

If staying in one place, we use USPS free forwarding service, as mentioned above.

When on a long road trip, we pay our neighbor to collect our mail, look through it (without opening it) and let us know if she sees anything she thinks might be important. She contacts us and I tell her what to do (nothing or mail to us at a certain location, open and scan/email to us). Most of our mail can wait until we get back. I have all of our regular bills on auto pay.

I was wondering....if you use a mail service, wouldn't you have to change your address to their address then back to your own when you return, or forward your mail to their address so they can forward it to you, wherever you are? IMO a mail service seems appropriate for full-timers, but not for those of us who go away for a few months at a time and still have a residence.

[missnmountains]

We use the Goodsam mail service when we go to Alaska. They are here in Florida.

Goodsam Mail Service

What we like is they will scan any mail and email it. They trash all of the junk mail. Only once a month or so do we have them forward the actual mail to us.

Ken

[BarneyS]

When we spent our three or four months in Florida each winter, all I did was go to the USPS web site and chose the Regular Mail Forwarding Service. There was no cost to do this and they sent all of our regular mail. They will only send the first couple of months of magazines as far as I remember.

They have a premium service that does cost money each month but we never used it or needed it.
All you do is put in your start date and end date and that is about it. We never had a single problem doing it that way.

This all depends on you staying in a place for some time. If you are constantly on the move it will not work. There may be another type service for that but I know nothing about it.

Hope this helps. 🙂
Barney