Mail on the Road

[sandra@BCM]

How do you receive mail while on the road?

[bobofthenorth]

I hook up to this newfangled interweb thing and it automagically appears on my computer. 20 years ago it was a HUGE problem but now ............  I told my local postmistress we'd be gone for 3 months and she said "well, you don't really get that much - I'll just hold the flyers".  Other than Amazon deliveries she's 100% right. My local Co-op insists on sending me a paper statement but absolutely everyone else is online.  Even the taxman is accessible online now.

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

I use the Escapees Mail system in Livingston, TX.  All of our business mail, and some personal mail goes there.  When they receive it, they scan the cover of the envelope and alert me that I have an image to review.  I log in and view the cover image.  From that image, I can choose for them to open it and scan the contents, mail it to my sister's house who processes my mail, or destroy it.  If we choose to have it scanned, it costs a little bit (I forgot how much now).  Then they alert me that the contents is ready to review and I log in to view the scanned copy of the contents.  Then I can have the contents mailed to my sister's house to deal with, or we can choose to have it discarded.

They ship all mail to my sister's house on the 1st and 15th of each month.  Alternatively, what most people do when traveling, they will ship it to where you are whenever you want in one package.

This guarantees wherever I am at the time, I get an email within a day or two of all of my mail as it arrives and I can decide how to process it.  It requires a yearly membership in Escapees, which I maintain anyway, and a bank account number on file so they can withdraw funds as necessary to replenish my mail processing account.

I also have a mailbox in Anaheim, CA which builds up when I am not there, and I call them every few months to have them ship it to an address I plan to be at for at least a week where I can receive it and go through it there. But I am always late responding to those court summands using this system and they seem to hate that.