dealing with mail while away caravanning

Hi Alison,
The 'outlaws' (wife's parents) are on the road at the moment with no fixed address and have one redirection in to our address. We communicate often and inform them of any bills. If it needs immediate payment we tell them the amount and they b-pay or do internet banking(they have a laptop). Anything not as important we bundle together in one envelope and forward to their current address(caravan park or post office). So I guess you need a family member or friend you consider reliable enough to do this for you.
Good luck,
Brian

Hi, any monthly bills ie. power, phone, insurance etc. could be set up for automatic direct debit through you bank, you then wouldn't need to worry about late payments. As for remaining mail redirect to friend or forward onto your next destination.. Hope this was a little help. Cheers Michele

We have used the mail holding and forwarding service, LandBase Australia, for over three years now. Reasonable prices and great prompt service. Contact Jan at "lbase@ozemail.com.au" for all the details.

There are a couple of companies who forward mail to you for a fee. One is based in Brisbane. Don't know where the other is. You can do a google which may turn them up.

A better suggestion-
Friends of ours rented a post office box at the local post office and had all mail posted to their PO box. They then got the post master to forward their mail to them. He charged a fee plus the costs of the envelopes and stamps. They faxed or phoned him every friday afternoon with request as to where to post it. He was most reliable. As I recall they left him with $100 to cover his costs and stamps. After 6 months there was still signifcant change returned to them.

One thing they found. You supply the envelopes up front and pre-number them. That way there is a control to make sure you get everything.

Hope this helps

When we were on the wallaby for 5 years we used to get an address in a town(usually a Caravan Park) and then get a Post Box at the Post Office. Then we used to pay for mail forwarding from time to time. Then we would cancel the box after six months and do the same procedure somewhere else.

Now that we are settled again in one place we make sure all bills are paid up or in advance and let the Utilities suppliers know that we will be away from home. The only bugbear we have is Telstra. I have a Telstra Budget Card which lets me pay a Telstra account at any Post Office. I have to ring Telstra however to find out what the amount of the bill is. I have found that Telstra Shops in larger centres are usually useless as the last one and some previous, have given us the wrong info, letting us get behind with our payments. I was able to sort it out without incurring a late payment fee.

These days we give the local Post Master a cardboard box and ask for all mail to be deposited in there and then we leave for our three month trip.

Cheers

G'day Alison, on our last trip(10 weeks), before going we spoke to our post office for advice. For us the easyiest was to pre-purchace half a dozen post bags(the plastic ones), then whenever we knew we would be in a place for a while we contacted our post office(before our arrival to that destination) and asked them to forward our mail to that address. Worked ok for us, we were able to get a refund on the unused post bags.
Hope this is helpful
andy