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I will be snowbirding in Arizona this winter for three months. Most of my bills, etc. I do online, but occasionally I will get mail that I "do" need to really deal with, etc. Particularly, I'm thinking in Jan. and Feb. I will get tax documents such as W-2s, 1099s, etc...that I need for tax preparation. (Not sure if these are generally able to be forwarded or not).
Anyway, what have any of you who are in a similar situation done to ensure accurate and fairly timely delivery of your mail from your permanent residence to your "snowbird" residence?
You could get a "Mail" box at a place like the UPS store, and have all your mail go there Year Round, When you are in AZ, you can have the UPS store "Mail" it (weekly, bi-monthly) to your AZ address. (They do charge for the Box and the forwarding),
But it would save you from the USPS forwarding issues of "Auto Address Correction database" of future mail that would get send to AZ even when you are back in the snow belt.
Many Companies pay the USPS for correct address/Updated from the forwards requests, and update your address record in there database to that being your "New" address.
You can use the premium forwarding service with the US Post Office. It's a $19.35 fee and then it's $19.35 per week. They bundle up EVERYTHING that comes to you and forward it to you.
I will be snowbirding in Arizona this winter for three months. Most of my bills, etc. I do online, but occasionally I will get mail that I "do" need to really deal with, etc. Particularly, I'm thinking in Jan. and Feb. I will get tax documents such as W-2s, 1099s, etc...that I need for tax preparation. (Not sure if these are generally able to be forwarded or not).
Anyway, what have any of you who are in a similar situation done to ensure accurate and fairly timely delivery of your mail from your permanent residence to your "snowbird" residence?
Thanks in advance.
Do you have a trusting neighbor, friend or church member who could gather your mail at home and pick out the important stuff you need and put that in a brown envelope and send to you? They could create their own label and pay for on the postal site and hand it to their carrier.
When we were on a trip for a few weeks we had told the post office in advance to hold the mail. Sadly they did not and the box filled up. A neighbor saw a car drive up one day and take all the mail out of the box. As it turned out that was the postmaster coming to get the mail that "they" the post office had failed to "stop delivering" per the "hold mail" order, so relying on them to hold your mail is not perfect.
We have been snowbirds for years. I go online to the USPS and fill out the form to have my mail forwarded, usually on the date we are leaving and it is forwarded to the office where we are staying (RV resort). I use an end date of 2 weeks before we are leaving for home and then fill out (online) a Mail Hold, with delivery scheduled for the day we expect to arrive home. You can also pick your mail up when you get home.
I was going to use the USPS premium forwarding this year, even though it was pretty expensive but ended up just getting a FedEx Account. I've made up several FedEx envelopes with the labels already on. A relative will stop by once every 2-3 weeks, pick out anything that looks important, put it in the envelope and drop it in a FedEx box. The charge will just go on my credit card and my relative won't even have to worry about how much postage to put on it. Easy-peasy. Wish I had thought about that the past few years.
You may want to consider a web-based mail service like Traveling Mailbox. It's $15 a month, cancel anytime. Basically you just forward your mail to their address and they store it for you. You can scan any piece you need and print it off or they can forward it to you.
You may want to consider a web-based mail service like Traveling Mailbox. It's $15 a month, cancel anytime. Basically you just forward your mail to their address and they store it for you. You can scan any piece you need and print it off or they can forward it to you.
Thanks for providing this information. We will be moving soon to a home that does not have secured mailboxes, but rather just walk up boxes anyone can open. I've been worried about that. This service seems perfect for our privacy needs, and also is something we can use if/when we travel.
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