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HOW DO YOU GET YOUR MAIL AND PAY YOUR BILLS?
NORTHWEST CRUISERS, LET’S SHARE SOME INFORMATION.
By Robert Hale
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January 30, 2002. We have our mail held by the post office when we make our annual research cruises. After only a week or two the volume is intimidating -- most of it junk. After our 7-8 week summer cruise the volume is overwhelming. We need a week to sort through the catalogs, sales flyers and solicitations to find the important stuff, such as (golf) magazines, and of course the bills.
We try to pay the utilities ahead before we leave, and either pay cash or charge everything else on Visa. Marilynn calls the Visa 1-800 number once a month, answers a long list of privacy questions, and gets a balance we can settle with a check. That seems to work pretty well. Where practical, we have regular payments, such as the mortgage and the insurance premiums, set up for automatic withdrawal from our bank account.
During January’s Seattle Boat Show, Bonnie Abbott and Barbara DeLauter introduced themselves. They own Wanderers’ Mail Services in Seattle, a business that traces its roots back to 1909. They have hundreds of clients who use Wanderers’ as their mailing address.
For a small fee, Wanderers’ receives and sorts mail and packages, discards junk mail as the client authorizes and directs, and forwards what’s left to wherever the client wants. Weekly service could run as little as about $12 per month, plus postage or shipping charges. The typical fee, however, often is closer to $30-$35. In addition, a Wanderers’ post office box must be rented for $105 per year, or a little higher per month for shorter term rentals.
Bonnie and Barbara said that many of their clients are homeless people. Not the kind who live under bridges, though. The kind who can buy a bridge if they wished to do so. These are people who travel extensively, to the point where they often don’t have a genuinely “permanent” address. Thus the need for a dependable and discreet mail forwarding service. The two women ran down a long list of all the things they do for their clients, and it sounds almost too good to be true. The fees are extremely fair. We’re intrigued. Wanderers’ web site, by the way, is www.wanderersmailservices.com.
We understand that other such services exist, too, but we’ve not looked into the subject.
Cruisers, how do you handle mail forwarding and bill paying when you’re away from home for weeks at a time? Send your insights, suggestions and advice to us here at waggtalk@waggonerguide.com. We’ll post your responses so all can learn.v
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