Of all the things that people ask me about full-time RVing
the one that tickles me the most is, “How do you get your mail?”
The reason it tickles me is that most of the time they’ve
asked several other questions and I know eventually they will ask this
particular question.
If you’re new to traveling you may be wondering the exact
same thing. So, here’s the answer.
I use a mail forwarding service.
They receive my mail for me. I had to fill out paperwork
giving them legal permission.
They scan the envelopes and email me the scan.
I then decide to have it forwarded to where I am
currently, ask them to open, scan the contents and email it to me, or shred it.
If I chose for them to scan the contents, I can then choose to have it
forwarded to me or shredded.
If I have it forwarded to me the RV park offices will
receive it for me. I often use Amazon Prime to order things and have never had
a problem getting the items. Either the office ends up with them or sometimes
UPS comes right to my RV and knocks on the front door.
It costs anywhere from $10–30 a month depending on the
bells and whistle you add to your account.
It’s been the best thing to reduce paper clutter and
because they scan things in I have virtual copies of everything I need.
Sometime people I explain this to say, they don’t
trust others with their mail and shredding. I can understand this and started
off slowly myself. I’ve been using them for years now and the fact they had me
sign certain documents actually put me at ease that they are trying to do
everything on the up and up.
The other thing I remember that soothe these kinds of
fears is that a lot of businesses already have my information. So, it’s now
free to freeze your credit and I do as a precaution, knowing the whole time
that when I fill out forms at my doctors office, my bank etc that they often
use third party services to shred those documents later as well.
Knowing this during our downsizing to fit into the RV to
begin with I took advantage of the office supply stores paid shredding. (Think
Office Depot, Office Max, and Staples) This saved me hours of work, during a
stressful time, and cost about $1 a pound. The office supply store I went with then
outsourced the shredding to Iron Mountain, the same place that shreds for many
doctors and hospitals. That office supply store even offer to have to watch
them shred it in store, for a little extra per pound.
I would say that was some
of the best spent $13 of my life and made downsizing that much more bearable,
(cough) I mean pleasant.
