Keep track of your mail while OTR - Informed Delivery - Free

I've been using a free service from the US Post Office for years and it really helps me. The service is available to anyone with a mailing address and is very useful. It's called Informed Delivery. Every day the USPS will send a picture of the mail they are delivering to your address (home, or P.O. box) to whatever email address you give them. It costs nothing to use. Since you can see a picture of the mail coming to your address you might even be persuaded to use a PO Box which is much safer than leaving your mail laying around your home's mailbox until you or someone at home can pick it up.

I've read a few stories of drivers over the year having problems with being OTR and missing important or official mail while on the road. Informed Delivery doesn't show you what is inside the letter, but every govt agency I deal with has official looking envelopes and if you get a letter from the IRS or Dept of Motor Vehicles, or even a jury notice you should look at it soon.

 

I haven't noticed my service has changed in the few years I've used it. I suspect the quality varies by processing facility or post office location. I used one PO Box key for me and left another key with a trusted family member so if something important showed up while I was gone it could be dealt with by them. They could at least go get the important mail, open it and read it to me. It's free, and it fit my needs while OTR and also when I living on the other side of the country.

If you want a full-service solution, besides having family daily collect and read your mail, you can use a mail forwarding service, but that costs real money and you have to leave a cash balance on your account which pays for them to scan each piece of mail, read the mail you direct them to read, etc. Some of the services will even do errands like renew car registration, etc.