Mail December 13, 2004, 12:31:19 am Yahoo Message Number: 47759The PO will only temporarily forward for 30 days, so what advice do all of you guys have for when I go for longer than that? Sure can't just ignore my bills darn! I've heard about Mailboxes Etc. how much do they charge, how well do they work, & how do you do it?Love to hear about all the mail-forwarding services everyone uses. Thanks a bunch!Ramblin' Rose
Re: Mail Reply #1 – December 13, 2004, 05:45:34 am Yahoo Message Number: 47764Quote The PO will only temporarily forward for 30 days, so what advice do all of you guys have for when I go for longer than that? Sure can'tQuotejust ignore my bills darn! I've used electronic banking/bill pay for years. All income is automatically deposited to one account. Or you can use your banking site to transfer money between accounts. Check with your bank for details. They all have a few wrinkles of their own. All bills come to me either via e-mail or I have the bill charged directly to my credit card if e-mail is not an option. Either way works but I do prefer to review a bill before paying rather than after I've already paid it. I have one bill, the trash collection company, that offers no option to snail mail. In that case, I know what the bill will be and using my bill-pay program, set up a "future pay" for that bill. Very easy to monitor the system while on the road. Now, when my daily snail mail arrives, it's mostly junk mail. No bills. That's the easy part of travelling. We get out snail mail by a rural carrier. She holds our mail for as long as we want. Each Christmas we give her $50. Works for both of us.Others can address the different mail forwarding options. Check the Escapees website for some related info. Ed Ft. Pierce, FL
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Mail Reply #2 – December 13, 2004, 11:50:16 am Yahoo Message Number: 47788Rose - Ed and Carol offered good advice on bill-paying. The only bills we get in the mail are random things like doctor bills. As for other mail, if you have a trusted friend or relative you can forward mail to, you might ask them to sort your mail and forward bills and other important mail to you. When we are gone for over a month, we have our mail forwarded to our son in Phoenix. We stop by his house a couple of weeks before we get back home, so we can pick up our mail and cancel the forwarding. We then have our home PO hold our mail until we get home. Works for us.--Al in Bremerton --2002 26.5 MB
Re: Mail Reply #3 – January 07, 2007, 07:42:53 am Yahoo Message Number: 74765Hi, Cindy, First, congratulations on your upcoming upgrade from Wannabees to Gonnabees. And welcome to this group. As for mail, we have tried various approaches: a relative, a neighbor, and the UPS store. This year we're using the Family Motor Coach Association service. We switched from Good Sam to FMCA for a number of reasons, one of which was the fact that their mail service charges only for the actual cost of postage used to forward your mail - there is no monthly/annual fee for it. So far, so good on our current 7 month trip.Ted H.'02 FL NE-12Posted by: "cfranks29"What do you all do about your mail??? Cindy[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Mail Reply #4 – December 13, 2004, 11:47:13 am Yahoo Message Number: 47785The PO will only temporarily forward for 30 days, so what advice do all of you guys have for when I go for longer than that? Sure can't just ignore my bills darn! I've heard about Mailboxes Etc. how much do they charge, how well do they work, & how do you do it? If you have a neighbor or relative that is willing to pick up your mail and then send it to you as you request, that would be the cheapest option (you'd want to leave them some money to purchase Priority Mail envelopes and for postage -- they'd put all the mail you wanted sent into one Priority Mail envelope and then send that to you where ever you are). I can't tell you how much Mailboxes, Etc. (now the UPS Store) costs, but I've heard of some fulltimers who use their services, so it must work well. Just go to your local UPS Store and tell them what you want to do. You'll then put a temporary change of address in at your Post Office so that all your mail is sent to your box at the UPS Store. When you're ready for your mail to be sent to you, just call the UPS Store and tell them where you want it sent (to the RV park where you're staying, or to "General Delivery"). If you do the "General Delivery" thing, try to pick a small town with only 1 post office, because a large town, like Phoenix, AZ for instance, will have many post offices, but just one will accept General Delivery mail.Linda & Earl 2004 23.5' Red TK From Quartzsite, AZ
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Mail Reply #5 – December 13, 2004, 12:43:49 pm Yahoo Message Number: 47790If you have a neighbor, relative, or friend who can pick up your mail, the big advantage over the commercial fowarding services is that they can exercise some judgment about what to send and you won't pay to forward junk. Priority Mail supplies are available free from usps.com. For small quantities of mail, the "Flat Rate" envelope is great -- stuff it full for $3.85 regardless of weight, and most POs will let you put some tape on it for extra security. The USPS also has two new Flat Rate Priority Mail BOXES, which you can fill with any weight and ship for $7.70 (i.e., twice the rate of the flat rate envelope). The 2 boxes have about equal volumes, but the one with inside dimensions of roughly 12 by 13.5 by 3.5 will hold a LOT of mail. You could leave your neighbor with a supply of the flat rate envelopes/boxes and some $3.85 priority stamps to use as needed. With advance notice, your mail carrier will pick up stamped Priority Mail as part of their regular delivery
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Mail Reply #6 – December 13, 2004, 02:36:43 pm Yahoo Message Number: 47793QuoteI can't tell you how much Mailboxes, Etc. (now the UPS Store) costs, but QuoteI've heard of some fulltimers who use their services, so it must work well. I believe their base cost is $125/year, plus charges for forwarding.
Re: Mail forwarding Reply #7 – December 13, 2004, 03:17:28 pm Yahoo Message Number: 47794"I believe [the UPS Store] base cost is $125/year, plus charges for forwarding." Before I went with them, I'd take a serious look at the Escapees mail forwarding service (http://escapees.com/MailForwardingService.asp>). Their base rate is $85/year (plus postage cost), but they offer three tiers of service. In the highest tier ($125/year--same as the UPS Store), they will forward first and third class mail separately, custom-sort mail according to your special instructions, handle 20 or more packages a year, and provide unlimited special services such as reading letters to you over the phone, watching for special mail, etc. And with all levels of their forwarding service they include $25,000 worth of identity theft insurance (with a zero deductible) at no extra cost. These people have a huge automated mail sorting facility, and reportedly they're very fast and efficient; and I've heard many stories about their workers going the extra mile. They serve only RVers, so they know our needs. I haven't used the Escapees forwarding service yet myself, but I probably will...and I've heard nothing but good about them from other Escapees.Andy Baird
Re: Mail forwarding Reply #8 – December 13, 2004, 04:53:16 pm Yahoo Message Number: 47797We have used the Escapees mail service for several years now and are very happy with them. We have the middle level of service and they will weed out the junk mail and not forward it on request, receive packages for us from FedEx or UPS, go and look through our mail when we ask and tell us if a particular item has arrived, send mail out to the same address until we change it, ... lots of special services are included. We can get our mail via FedEx here in Mexico if there is something we really need. In the US, it generally takes 3 days for our mail to arrive. It's important to pick a small town to have your mail sent to as it is a lot easier to find the PO and you don't have to worry about which PO accepts General Delivery. I usually call the USPS 800# and get the address of the PO I want it sent to and then email the mail service to send there. We took a tour of the Mail Service building when we were in Livingston this fall. It's impressive, they have a huge auto sort machine and an incredible filing system. I recommend the tour if you are ever there.Jonna, back in school today in GDL. Although I'm only paying for a group class, I am the only student in my class now and basically getting 4 hours a day of private tutoring. There's no hiding though and that makes it a little harder.
[Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Mail forwarding Reply #9 – December 13, 2004, 10:21:58 pm Yahoo Message Number: 47816Quote...snip... take a serious look at the Escapees mail forwarding service (http://escapees.com/MailForwardingService.asp>http://escapees.com/MailForwardingService.asp>). Their base rate is $85/year ...snip... We second that suggestion. We used them for over eight years. They were fantastic. We heard many horror stories from various other services but nary a one from the SKPs.Cheers,Dave & Sandy2000 26.5 RB Albuquerque[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Mail forwarding Reply #10 – December 14, 2004, 09:52:42 am Yahoo Message Number: 47836Greetings:I thought I would share our short story on mail forwarding. For three years, we traveled six months out of the year. In the small town where we lived in New York State, the local post office forwarded our mail free of charge in a priority mail envelope to wherever we were. We would call our postal clerk on Thursday to give her our Monday address, and she would pack everything in an envelope and send it out on Friday, and we would get in on Monday. In three years, one envelope was lost. Luckily, it was magazines and such so no problems. Occasionally, she would have to use two or three envelopes. Of course, we always remembered her at Christmas and when we returned home with a gift!David Updegraff still a wannabe!
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Mail forwarding Reply #11 – December 14, 2004, 05:42:31 pm Yahoo Message Number: 47864(snip) . . . I'd take a serious look at the Escapees mail forwarding service (http://escapees.com/MailForwardingService.asp>). Their base rate is $85/year (plus postage cost), but they offer three tiers of service. . . .Glad you mentioned them, Andy. I used them all the time when I was full-timing, and just kept the service ever since. So now when Pete & I are going to be gone for less than a month, I just have the post office keep it. When we're gone longer than that, I fill out temporary forwarding address cards for the two of us. I subscribe to the kind that tosses out all the third class mail, which I wish I could get someone to do here at home! I've called them many times when on the road to look for some particular letter - they are really accommodating. Give them a call.Sarah ABQ[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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