NEW ADDRESS? DON’T LOSE YOUR MAIL

With many employers allowing staffers to work remotely well into 2021, you may be considering a temporary move. Perhaps you have relatives who need help with child care, or elderly parents to look after. Or maybe, if you’re going to be all alone for the next few months anyway, you’ve decided having deer as neighbors in a tiny house in the woods sounds better than communing with the roaches in your apartment.

Before you go, among the things you should think about is how to keep your mail and packages flowing. A temporary relocation is not the same as even a two-week vacation, when you can put a hold on your mail at the post office and blissfully ignore it until you get home.

Sure, much of what arrives in your box these days — like bills — can and may already be delivered electronically. However, essential correspondence (like your absentee or mail-in ballot) is destined for your mailbox this fall. If you don’t want to sacrifice your goodies to marauding porch pirates, you need to be proactive about updating your mailing address.

1. Set up forwarding.

The first step is simple: Sign up for mail forwarding, a service offered by the U.S. Postal Service. Ask for PS Form 3575 at your local post office or complete the forwarding process online (although there’s a $1.05 charge for online sign-up). Make sure to indicate your predicted end date on the form. The post office considers any move up to six months temporary.

It’s possible you’ll run into a situation where the home you’re moving to has not yet been set up for USPS service (especially if it’s very rural or has been primarily a vacation home). Visit your nearest post office to have it set you up with delivery service or offer you access to a free P.O. box if you are not on an existing postal route.

Even if you think you can live without Postal Service deliveries, remember that the post office does some last-mile deliveries for other shippers, like UPS and FedEx.

2. Set up your package deliveries.

When it comes to UPS and FedEx deliveries, neither has the same forwarding feature that the Postal Service offers. However, both allow you to track packages in real time and leave instructions for the delivery person.

UPS My Choice, a free service from UPS, will even give you an option to reroute a package that’s bound for your old address or have one left at a“UPS Access Point”— usually a nearby retail outlet — if a box is going to arrive after you leave for your new home. FedEx offers a Delivery Manager tool, which lets you closely track packages for free and reroute them if needed — for a fee. If a signature is required, FedEx’s Delivery Manager and UPS My Choice will let you sign for a package remotely.

3. Don’t forget that dog food subscription.

Look through your past two credit card statements to check for auto-ship subscriptions you have connected to your home address. Commonly overlooked subscriptions include pet food, cosmetics, cleaning supplies and specialty coffee.

4. Consider a mail concierge.

Finally, if you’re thinking of working abroad for a few months, consider opting for a concierge mail service like Traveling Mailbox.

Here’s how it works: Before you leave, you set up mail forwarding to Traveling Mailbox’s headquarters. For $15 to $25 (depending on how much mail you tend to receive), the company takes your correspondence and sends digital scans of everything that’s not junk. Employees will open anything you ask them to open. They can also forward items, send your paychecks to your bank for deposit and pay bills.

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