STEVENSFROG

Thanks for comment on my blog. Wife Linda is diabetic with complications so getting around can be difficult. We are four blocks from the beach and used the wheelchair yesterday. Today a fellow camper from NC has offered us a ride. We did not bring the car as was our first trip with new coach.

You will love full-timing in your motorhome. No seed to sow; no fertilize to spread; no grass to mow; cleaning gutters, and on an on. I have been full-timing for the past four years and love every minute of it. Attending and volunteering at Unit, Area and National rallies is where I have the most enjoyment. Meeting people from all across this great America as a Tram volunteer is my number one enjoyment with helping park incoming coach's a close second.

Having all my personal and base camp bills automatically paid by my bank is a must for me. Mail is a very small consideration with the use of my 3G Laptop and cell phone to conduct business and maintain family contacts. Sorry I am not much help with your US Postal mail thoughts. As you continually analyze this spoke in the full-timing wheel, you will all of a suden realize, "hey it wasn't all that hard to fix".

Good luck, safe travels and hope to see you on down the road.

Bob Gregory

F296139

You will love full-timing in your motorhome. No seed to sow; no fertilize to spread; no grass to mow; cleaning gutters, and on an on. I have been full-timing for the past four years and love every minute of it. Attending and volunteering at Unit, Area and National rallies is where I have the most enjoyment. Meeting people from all across this great America as a Tram volunteer is my number one enjoyment with helping park incoming coach's a close second.

Having all my personal and base camp bills automatically paid by my bank is a must for me. Mail is a very small consideration with the use of my 3G Laptop and cell phone to conduct business and maintain family contacts. Sorry I am not much help with your US Postal mail thoughts. As you continually analyze this spoke in the full-timing wheel, you will all of a suden realize, "hey it wasn't all that hard to fix".

Good luck, safe travels and hope to see you on down the road.

Bob Gregory

F296139

Bob,

Thanks for the reply, we have also made arrangements for auto pay on everything possible, just the credit card we use all the time has to be pulled up & payment sent--of course I also do that from my computer.

We are going to be Camp Host at a SC State Park from April 1 thru June 6, then will tool around for a couple of months before we go down to Florida where we will again volunteer at a State Park, this one in the Keys.

We have met so many really nice folks & remain friends with quite a few that we met while volunteering.

If you ever see our Dutch Star #405689 come over & say HI.

Ken & Nancy Stevens

F405689

Ken, Nancy and Katie Too,

The US mail situation has several solutions.

1) We use a company in South Dakota, there are several, ours is MyHomeAddressInc.com (MHA) out of Emery, South Dakota. For about $250 per year they will handle your mail for you as you desire. We also pay for the cost of sending each mailing, any packaging needed and they charge 0.50 per mailing for handling. They will also give you a "home address" as the name suggests. They can register your vehicles in South Dakota and with a South Dakota drivers license (good for 5 years) you will be a resident of South Dakota. Like several other states, South Dakota has no state income tax. This more than pays for the expense of all of the above. We simply e-mail them (or you can phone their 800 number) to let them know where to send our mail and they will mail it to us. We elect to have our mail sent out once every week. We also tell them to send all our mail, they will toss out the ads and catalogs for you want. They hold our mail when we are in Canada. Many times we have them send the mail General Delivery to a U.S. Post Office along our route of travel or where we will be staying for some time. We also ask them to ship the mail via U.S. Priority Mail so it arrives in a timely manner. We have occasionally encountered a glitch (some the Post Office fault, some communications problems between us and MHA) but this has been our method of mail deliver for almost eight years now. There are other states that have similar companies that do pretty much the same thing. Among them, Texas, Florida are two that I know of. We bought a book that covered many aspects of choosing a home state for full timers. I don't have it anymore and can't remember the title but if you search the internet I'll bet you can find it or its updated successor. Look in Family Motor Coaching magazine for some of these companies. There are legal implications to changing your state of residence, be sure to consider this one carefully.

2) I believe that FMCA still has a member benefit for mail handling if that is all you want. You could maintain your residence where you are now. For some retirees there is no benefit in having a income tax free state as their retirement system requires them to pay income taxes on their retirement in their state at the time they worked. I believe the cost for this is pretty minimal. Check your membership benefits on-line or in the January issue of Family Motor Coaching.

3) I have heard some people use Mail Boxes etc. or a similar mail handling company. They won't offer any of the other services that the first category of businesses will. I have no idea what their rates are or how they handle forwarding.

4) There is an organization for Full Timers, Escapees, headquartered in Texas. You get a Texas address and their mail forwarding service if that fits your need. You can use this address for a home address also.

5) Some people have a relative or friend who will allow them to have mail sent to their address and forward it to them. Here you work out the deal with your friends. I guess if you are generous with them, they might not tire of having to sort out your mail, packaging it and sending it to you.

Note: If you have your mail sent General Delivery one of the tips we got when we started was to choose a Post Office in a small town. In larger towns, only one Post Office will receive all General Delivery Mail for that town. It is the main Post Office and may be in a busy downtown not suitable for an RV. We almost always try to do this. We use the U.S. Post Office website to get the zip code for the post office, it has their address and you can get a map showing where that post office is located in the town.

Hope some of this helps you. Glad you have you out there on the road with us. Enjoy the adventure.

Thanks for the information on mail forwarding, I have done quite a bit of research & feel for our situation registering in Florida, where our son lives will be the best for us. It will also cut out the SC property tax on out 40' "HOME"

Ken & Nancy Stevens

I Full Timed for 11 years and used FMCA mail forwarding. It was excellent in all ways.

We have been full timing since Aug 2009 and love it! We have a 40' camelot and hope to be doing this for several years. Our mail is sent to my sister in Florida who in turn sends it to us. We pay her a small fee for forwarding it to us. Our only issues has been getting good service however I think it goes with the territory. Good luck in your travels.