Being an expat means one has to keep a lot of things in mind in order to make life easier in their new chosen countries of residence. Among the concerns is how to make sure you still receive your important pieces of mail. Here is a solution that has worked well for us, and one that l highly recommend.
When you start a nomad or ex-pat experience, a pressing question is “how do l receive mail as a global citizen?”. This is where Anytime Mailbox comes in. They provide a very useful service where they will receive your mail, scan it, and send you an email of the digital copies. You can then decide what you want to do. You can access your virtual mailbox from anywhere in the world.
Why you need a virtual mailbox:
A lot of people when they leave their homes, do so after selling their possessions and giving up their apartments or sell their homes. Even when you have family behind, you might not want to impose on them to become your mailman of sorts. Another point is the privacy factor. I wouldn’t feel comfortable having family members have access to my confidential information, especially financial ones.
As an American citizen, you are obliged to file taxes on a yearly basis, no matter where you live. Some choose to renew government IDs such as a driver’s license and of course bank statements. Having a virtual mailbox like Anytime Mailbox means you have peace of mind knowing that your most precious mail will be delivered to a trustworthy company.
How Anytime Mailbox Works:
These are the steps to get your virtual mailbox account:
Visit the website, and check out what state and area fit your need the best. You will find that they have quite a few locations across the country, over 700 in fact. The prices per month are displayed prominently. Once you have chosen your location and picked the service plan, you’re on your way to digital service. The plans start from $6.99 per month.
I like Anytime Mailbox because you are given a real street address, as opposed to a mailbox which some institutions like banks will not accept. We have our mailbox close to where we used to reside in Houston, and costs $9.99 monthly. We chose this as to some other cheaper places because we were familiar with the area, and if we ever needed to go in and pick up mail while visiting, we know where to go. Worth the extra dollars to us.
One thing that is required before you can start using your mailbox is your ID verification. They want to make sure that you are who you say you are. This information needs to be notarized. I had thought it would be a huge problem since we were not in the country, and getting something notarized in Spain is a giant pain in the neck.
I was therefore very happy to hear that Anytime Mailbox contracts with a virtual notary company, and that the service was available 24/7, which was great considering the time difference. I went to that website and was shortly connected to a notary based in New Orleans. Once that was done, they sent an email verification to the mailbox company, and we were good to go. Please note that there is a $25 charge for this.
You might like: Expat life things to know.
Receiving Mail Virtually:
When you receive a new mail notification, you can visit your digital mailbox and see the scanned copy of the mail. You are given options on how to proceed. You can have them shredded if it’s not important, open and scanned, or forwarded to an address of your choosing. A perfect solution for global wanderers. You can even have them deposit paper checks (but who uses that anymore?). Still nice to have that option.
Once you have your virtual mailbox, you can then proceed to change your address with your credit card companies, banks, etc. I had thought l would have a problem, but they all accepted it without a hitch. We have enjoyed the service, and continue to do so. The fact that we will not be missing any important or timely correspondence is a huge relief.
- Global notification and access to a virtual mailbox
- Mail and package forwarding
- Real street address
- Check deposit
- Online Storage
- Shredding and scanning service
With all the advantages of Anytime Mailbox, including I think it’s a wise decision to sign up and make your life a lot easier. Worry about the bigger things.
Find out more about anytime mailbox
How do you get your global mail?
