How do you receive postal mail while you are abroad?

[Winston]

Question for all those living abroad:

How do you receive your postal mail while you are overseas? What do you do about that? As far as I know, you can have the USPS forward it to a friend or relative to collect it and take care of it for you. But what if you trust no one or you have no one that's willing to do that for you? Do you rent a PO Box at the post office and forward it there?

I see there is a virtual mailbox now that helps out with this situation. But it requires a monthly fee. See below.

https://www.earthclassmail.com/virtual-mailbox

Here is how to get a PO Box at the post office, but it requires monthly fees.

https://poboxes.usps.com/findBox.html

How do you guys who live abroad most of the year or full time, deal with this issue? Any advice?

The thing is, my aunt is moving out of Las Vegas so we can't forward our mail to her house anymore. So I'm looking for alternatives. Any advice or suggestions?

[Shemp]

You need to get a mailbox service, not USPS. Get a well established company with reasonable rates that will be in business forever. Change all financial institutions and your Nevada drivers license to this mailbox service . Be careful about ordering things to be sent to this service, because they may flood you with paper catalogs. Amazon is no problem. Make sure all 4 credit reporting agencies update your records to show aunts address as residence and new mailing service as mailing. Then you can continue to use aunts address as residence address forever. No one will ever know you dont actuality live there anymore.

Before your aunt moves, hurry up and open as many bank accounts and credit cards as you will need fit the rest of your life. You may need to switch utilities at aunts house to your name first. At minimum: Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, at least 2 big banks (CapitalOne, Bank of America, etc), at least 2 credit cards (could be from aforementioned banks).

Get Mint $15/month mobile or possibly Google FI $20/plan as your USA mobile. Mint allows cheap roaming, Google FI allows forwarding to Google Voice (you'll need 2 Gmail accounts for this forwarding). Advantage of GoogleFI is no need for SIM one forwarding enabled. Disadvantage is all your eggs in the Google basket. You must have a real USA mobile for some 2FA. However, all the aforementioned financial services allow Google Voice for 2FA, based on my experience.

If you dont prepare now, you could be screwed after leaving the USA.

[MrMan]

I had mail sent to my parents house, listing that as my address. Mail forwarding only lasts for so many months. Shemp's suggestion about using a service (Mail Boxes, etc. comes to mind) makes sense if you don't have a relative to do it or don't want to bother them. There is something like a do not call list for mail ads, but few people sign up for it. I don't know if it works better than the Do Not Call directory.

I don't know if there is a service that you can pay (and trust) to open mail and report about it to you or even scan it for you. My mom would tell me about important mails years ago, for some things, back in the day. When credit card bills were online, it wasn't much of an issue. A real concern would be correspondence from the IRS or something legal and important like that.

I have used my Google phone number through Google Voice, formerly through Google Hangouts, then before that I think it was Google Talk. I can get phone calls. I'll do this for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) if my cell phone is in the other room. I can get texts that way, too. I don't pay anything for it except I put money in if I am using it to call internationally. I put $10 in years ago. International calls are cheap through Google Voice, when I've used it.

[MrMan]

I haven't tried this, but you could give out a google phone number, then take calls from the US on your computer. I just called home and didn't take incoming calls from home. There's Facebook, Teams, Zoom, etc. also. But if you had your computer on all the time, you could take calls whenever it is not asleep with google phone. Maybe your phone could do it.

Getting phone calls whenever other people want to reach ___you___ isn't really that desirable.

[Winston]

You need to get a mailbox service, not USPS. Get a well established company with reasonable rates that will be in business forever. Change all financial institutions and your Nevada drivers license to this mailbox service . Be careful about ordering things to be sent to this service, because they may flood you with paper catalogs. Amazon is no problem. Make sure all 4 credit reporting agencies update your records to show aunts address as residence and new mailing service as mailing. Then you can continue to use aunts address as residence address forever. No one will ever know you dont actuality live there anymore.

Before your aunt moves, hurry up and open as many bank accounts and credit cards as you will need fit the rest of your life. You may need to switch utilities at aunts house to your name first. At minimum: Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, at least 2 big banks (CapitalOne, Bank of America, etc), at least 2 credit cards (could be from aforementioned banks).

Get Mint $15/month mobile or possibly Google FI $20/plan as your USA mobile. Mint allows cheap roaming, Google FI allows forwarding to Google Voice (you'll need 2 Gmail accounts for this forwarding). Advantage of GoogleFI is no need for SIM one forwarding enabled. Disadvantage is all your eggs in the Google basket. You must have a real USA mobile for some 2FA. However, all the aforementioned financial services allow Google Voice for 2FA, based on my experience.

If you dont prepare now, you could be screwed after leaving the USA.

What's a mailbox service? Can you give me an example or a link? Isn't it expensive? Can mail be forwarded there? I prefer to forward mail because I don't want a PO Box address as a long term solution.

I looked up USPS. The mailboxes are small and the big ones are expensive. The mailboxes at UPS store are even more expensive. Not sure what to do. I guess it's ok short term. Maybe when my son comes to America he can take care of it?

Why do I need more credit cards or bank accounts? One bank account is enough isn't it? My B of A account serves all my needs. I already have 2 credit cards. Why would I need more?

I already have a Tracfone cell phone where I pay 20 dollars every 3 months to keep it in service. However it is CDMA and will not roam in Asia. However, I don't need it since all my friends have other contact info for me. I just use the Tracfone for when I need to make calls when I am outside. I don't understand what this has to do with my question though?

[Shemp]

I'm bicycling in the desert and can't respond at length or give rapid responses. But what i wrote above was influenced by advice i have on a digital nomad forum to an expat (living in Taiwan and planning to move to the USA) who is having massive problems with USA banking and mail.

Problem with one USA bank is the bank can lock your account at any time for who knows what reason. That's why i have 5 bank accounts (plus an extra Schwab account, so 6 debit cards), plus a bunch of credit cards, plus Mint and GoogleVoice, plus my Ukraine bank and Vodafone. And I'm not even a full-time expat. You can just have $10 in online only bank accounts and they will stay active. Bank of America is the only one that requires $1000 or frequent deposits.

My mailbox service is $180/year, not counting forwarding. I visit the USA each winter, so mail just accumulates. Like i said, avoid letting catalog companies get your address. If i needed forwarding, i would just do it in bulk once a year, for maybe $100 for a big envelope with all the mail inside. Most of the enclosed mail would be election campaign advertising junk mail, which unfortunately cannot be stopped, because tied to my driver's license address, which these election campaigns can access. Most of my banking and government mail is electronic now.

[MrMan]

You need to get a mailbox service, not USPS. Get a well established company with reasonable rates that will be in business forever. Change all financial institutions and your Nevada drivers license to this mailbox service . Be careful about ordering things to be sent to this service, because they may flood you with paper catalogs. Amazon is no problem. Make sure all 4 credit reporting agencies update your records to show aunts address as residence and new mailing service as mailing. Then you can continue to use aunts address as residence address forever. No one will ever know you dont actuality live there anymore.

Before your aunt moves, hurry up and open as many bank accounts and credit cards as you will need fit the rest of your life. You may need to switch utilities at aunts house to your name first. At minimum: Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, at least 2 big banks (CapitalOne, Bank of America, etc), at least 2 credit cards (could be from aforementioned banks).

Get Mint $15/month mobile or possibly Google FI $20/plan as your USA mobile. Mint allows cheap roaming, Google FI allows forwarding to Google Voice (you'll need 2 Gmail accounts for this forwarding). Advantage of GoogleFI is no need for SIM one forwarding enabled. Disadvantage is all your eggs in the Google basket. You must have a real USA mobile for some 2FA. However, all the aforementioned financial services allow Google Voice for 2FA, based on my experience.

If you dont prepare now, you could be screwed after leaving the USA.

What's a mailbox service? Can you give me an example or a link? Isn't it expensive? Can mail be forwarded there? I prefer to forward mail because I don't want a PO Box address as a long term solution.

I looked up USPS. The mailboxes are small and the big ones are expensive. The mailboxes at UPS store are even more expensive. Not sure what to do. I guess it's ok short term. Maybe when my son comes to America he can take care of it?

Why do I need more credit cards or bank accounts? One bank account is enough isn't it? My B of A account serves all my needs. I already have 2 credit cards. Why would I need more?

I already have a Tracfone cell phone where I pay 20 dollars every 3 months to keep it in service. However it is CDMA and will not roam in Asia. However, I don't need it since all my friends have other contact info for me. I just use the Tracfone for when I need to make calls when I am outside. I don't understand what this has to do with my question though?

I use Tracfone, also. I pay 26 and some change every 60 days. I've got kids on it now, and I am thinking of a more conventional group plan. My wife has been on an unlimited Verizon plan with a friend and we settle up with them. We looked into one of those resellers with an unlimited plan, but my phone model had an extra letter on it compared to hers and the wouldn't accept it.

The last time I worked overseas for two years, I just dropped my old phone numbers except for Google phone. Since I had a job, who really needed to call me except my parents and other relatives? They knew I was overseas. If you are going to go back to the US part of the year and need a consistent phone number, it's probably worth it just to keep the number active with the cheapest carrier you can find. You can even have another carrier pull the number over just for the months you are in the US, then switch it back later.

[MrMan]

I'm bicycling in the desert and can't respond at length or give rapid responses. But what i wrote above was influenced by advice i have on a digital nomad forum to an expat (living in Taiwan and planning to move to the USA) who is having massive problems with USA banking and mail.

Problem with one USA bank is the bank can lock your account at any time for who knows what reason. That's why i have 5 bank accounts (plus an extra Schwab account, so 6 debit cards), plus a bunch of credit cards, plus Mint and GoogleVoice, plus my Ukraine bank and Vodafone. And I'm not even a full-time expat. You can just have $10 in online only bank accounts and they will stay active. Bank of America is the only one that requires $1000 or frequent deposits.

My mailbox service is $180/year, not counting forwarding. I visit the USA each winter, so mail just accumulates. Like i said, avoid letting catalog companies get your address. If i needed forwarding, i would just do it in bulk once a year, for maybe $100 for a big envelope with all the mail inside. Most of the enclosed mail would be election campaign advertising junk mail, which unfortunately cannot be stopped, because tied to my driver's license address, which these election campaigns can access. Most of my banking and government mail is electronic now.

Lots of useful info here. Probably some of it changes with time. This annoying MFA feature has come along over the past several years and has taken over. Kind of like how they used to let you have any password and now all the sites make you have capitals and numbers, though I don't think there is any research that backs up the idea that that makes your account more secure.

About the bank accounts, there would be a lot of passwords to keep up with, but that looks like a good idea. Lots of other banks besides Bank of America require a minimum amount or some kind of activity to keep from charging fees. Some close or inactivate accounts or charge fees if the account is inactive.

Credit unions seem a little better about charging us fees for them to use our money, but some of them have fees, also.

Maybe we could all contact our senators and tell them to pass a law that allows us to opt out of mailed campaign ads. Maybe the Republicans would go for that since owners of large companies might be less likely to divert funds from their businesses to these types of campaigns.

[Shemp]

$20 per 3 months Tracfone is better than $15/month Mint, but does Tracfone allow roaming outside USA? Mint does, and no cost if only receiving 2FA SMS texts. Maybe you dont need 2FA SMS. Bank of America allows me to use Google Voice for 2FA, as do all my other financial institutions, however they can change at any time, which is why I want Mint roaming as backup.

[Ipohaa]

Dealing with postal mail while abroad can be tricky, but fear not, there are solutions! One option is to have your mail forwarded to a trusted friend or family member who can sort it for you. Alternatively, consider mail forwarding services or virtual mailbox providers. These services receive your mail, scan it, and send you digital copies, eliminating the need for physical presence. Plus, some countries offer mail-holding services for travelers.

[MrMan]

$20 per 3 months Tracfone is better than $15/month Mint, but does Tracfone allow roaming outside USA? Mint does, and no cost if only receiving 2FA SMS texts. Maybe you dont need 2FA SMS. Bank of America allows me to use Google Voice for 2FA, as do all my other financial institutions, however they can change at any time, which is why I want Mint roaming as backup.

It's good to know that about Mint. How much does a roaming phone call cost? What about text. I've used Google voice that way. It takes texts, too. 2FA can be extremely annoying.

[Shemp]

Ultramobile PayGo is now $3/month. Check Website for rates for roaming calls. No cost to receive 2FA SMS while roaming. Uses T-Mobile network worldwide.

[Ipohaa]

Dealing with postal mail while abroad can be tricky, but fear not, there are solutions! One option is to have your mail forwarded to a trusted friend or family member who can sort it for you. Alternatively, consider mail forwarding services or virtual mailbox providers. These services receive your mail, scan it, and send you digital copies, eliminating the need for physical presence. Plus, some countries offer mail-holding services like timesavingmachine for travelers.


By the way, I’m just about to leave. And all the mail will have to be left to my neighbors. They are good people and you can trust them. But it's still a little scary.