The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Bones81 on July 17, 2020, 10:18:06 AM
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Hello All,
I'm selling my home in a few weeks and will go full nomad for the foreseeable future. I'm looking for recommendations for a virtual mailbox service to have all my physical mail sent to. Any advice on who to use or not use would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
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I just spent a ton of time researching this for us. We chose to go with Traveling Mailbox because of reviews, cost, and what they offer as standard. My friend Behan Gifford has a good blog post she wrote a couple of years ago about questions to ask when looking - her numbers are out of date for the most part in terms of cost, but the premise is helpful. It's through the lens of cruisers (people who live and travel around on their boats) but applicable to anyone who's going off-grid for residence. Post is here: https://www.sailingtotem.com/2016/07/the-best-mail-services-for-cruisers.html (https://www.sailingtotem.com/2016/07/the-best-mail-services-for-cruisers.html)
FYI: we don't need residence in any given state, which is part of why Traveling Mailbox worked for us (they have mailboxes all over, but the ones outside of North Carolina are rented boxes in other facilities - and all the processing is done in NC, so there is a delay in processing if your mailbox is not in NC.
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There are a lot of options but I would caution you to first figure out where you want your state residency to be. For example, where would you be most comfortable going for medical treatment if needed and thus need health insurance there. Right now there are virtual mailbox services in all states so residency will determine your best fit. If you are going international then you need a virtual mailbox with a physical location in a state you want residency in so you have less hassles long term on drivers licenses, passport, etc. You may even find you prefer a particular city so that you can physically pick up your mail when needed.
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Thanks. Will probably look to keep my residency in Texas for now. Some of these services have Houston addresses you can use, so I will probably do that initially. As far as what I need, it's just the basic scanning of mail; I don't need checking cashing and things like that.
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We have been happy with Dakota Post out of Sioux Falls, SD. For TX, you might try Escapees out of Livingston.
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Following
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Thanks for bring up the medical insurance / medical care. I had thought about residency, DL, and passport, but not about the in-network out-network medical care.
What have other homeless entrepreneurs done if they needed a virtual mailbox / registered agent for both LLC and personal?
I had thought about putting both in Wyoming, cuz it can be slightly better for a business, but Texas would be better for flights and in person medical care.
Can any digital nomads who have already weighed the pros and cons share their decision making process?
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Mainly PTF, but I'm coming back to the US this year and establishing residency in Florida before going nomadic. Would love to hear firsthand experiences which virtual mailbox addresses work successfully for financial account residential addresses. (vanguard, ally, fidelity, etc.)
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We use iPostal, which is less slick looking than some other services, but is low cost and efficient for our purposes.
It can scan, forward, shred/discard, deposit mobile checks, etc.
We use it for our rental properties.
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Hi, we have been using usabox for about 17 years. We used them while we were living overseas (China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Brussels) and had zero issues in any of our locations. Would recommend