(Mail, one of life’s highlights when you are distant)
We called for mail yesterday and it reminded me of the many times we have been asked how we handled the mail situation traveling so much. It does become a problem when you need something via mail asap.
In the beginning our family close by took care of looking at our mail box to check the mail. But we like to be more independent and when we learned from other full-timers about ‘Mail Forwarding Services’ we checked into it and signed up. These services are nation wide for some like UPS stores, and others are local businesses. WE have stayed with a local service.
We changed our address to the address of the Mail forwarding service. They assigned us a mail box at their facility where we could drop by and check the mail when we were close and call for it to be sent when we are afar.
The service is in the area of $100 a year plus the postage it takes to forward the mail. Some services will list your mail on the net and you can pick what you want forwarded. Ours is not that sophisticated. They forward what we have.
We noticed we were paying a lot to forward ‘junk’ mail we do not want. The Service offers to discard the junk mail first, but I get to thinking I would hate for something important to be considered junk and go the way of the trash can, so we try to weed them out.
(We have seen some post offices' this old)
The mail situation allows us to interact with many local folk at the Post Office. We try always to call for the mail to be sent General Delivery to small towns. AT these PO’s we get into many conversations about our lives and travel.
Interesting ones. We checked the mail at a PO in Alaska that was in a lady’s living room. One in NY where they had me fill out a couple forms before they informed me I had nothing yet.
One lady at that same NY Post office asked, “How can you live like that?” And there was the time I went to the wrong Post Office to get the mail. OUCH! All in all we adapted pretty quick to not looking at a mailbox every day.
If anyone else has any questions, don’t be afraid to ask. We have been on the road now over 15 years, I think.
Nite Shipslog
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This is the olden days!!!!
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7 comments:
I have always been a get the mail every day person. John was a couple of times a week person. Since he has been with me he is worse then I am. He even wants to try to get the mail on Sunday and holidays.
Dang, these days it must be difficult to claim "it got lost in the mail."
Here's just another case of necessity being the mother of invention. (Something like that, I think it goes?)
Going after the mail used to be such a treat, especially around the holidays. Nowadays, even once a week brings little more than fodder for the recycling.
That is interesting. Glad to know that for the most part you can have it forwarded and get what you need.
Hubby is the one that collects the mail here; we have a central bank of boxes here where we live and its easier for him to stop on his way home to work and get it. When he is out of town, I don't even bother with it (frankly, I'm not even sure which one is our mail box). When he returns, he'll collect it and it is not more than a piece or two of mail and usually "junk." When we first moved in here, the previous people didn't forward their mail. We got over a month's worth of their mail in the box and there was still room for more; not sure why the boxes were made that big. It used to be fun to see what was in the mail; now the majority of it ends up in the recycling bin.
betty
I often wondered how you managed your mail as you traveled, Jack. And...what about jury summons? Do you still get those, and if so, how much time does it take for you or Sherry to get them and then have "turn around" time for you to serve... Just curious. I'm always worried about getting jury summons(es)in the mail when we are away for an extended period of time. I usually have the post office hold our mail for us until we return...but I worry about the possibility of jury duty. The law waits for no one on vacation around here. :)
Hugs,
Jackie
I always look forward to seeing what the mail brings but like most, it is ads for something. I can't remember when I actually received a letter from someone. Glad you do have a reliable service and get your mail no matter where you are. Hope the two of you have a wonderful Sunday!
Thanks for sharing this. I always wondered how it worked for travelers. Fortunately we get letters from friend by email and pay all our bills and make money transfers all online so we only get "Junk Mail", and by the way, if a postal worker hears you say "junk mail" they get offended. They call it "job mail" or "Direct mail".
15 years? wow
Lisa
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