Leaving town? Here’s how to hold your mail

Posted By Jon Nickel-D'Andrea on Aug 3, 2018 | 3 comments

There are a few tell tale signs that you’re on vacation. When I was a kid, I would see the newspapers piling up in front of the neighbors house and I knew that they were gone. Neighbors watch out for each other, so we would always collect and recycle those papers. At least in our mind, we were doing our part to make it look like they were at home.

Image from Uplift.com

Since it seems like less and less people subscribe to newspapers, another surefire way to know someone’s not at home is by an accumulation of mail. Not only does it show that you’re not home, it also exposes all of your personal information for identity theft. Asking the post office to do a mail hold if one easy way to make sure that your information stays safe while you’re out enjoying the world.

How to hold mail

Step 1 is super easy. Type in your address to find out if you’re eligible for a mail hold. I can’t think of many reasons why you wouldn’t be, so you should be able to find your address easily enough.

Hold Mail Step 1

Step 2 is even easier. Just tell them the dates that you leave and the date you’re going to be back. For me, I always choose to have the mail delivered the day I arrive. For some people, receiving it the day after you arrive is another option (some people don’t want to deal with mail the day you’re back from a trip)

Hold Mail Step 2

And that’s it! You can either choose to have the mail delivered all at once (my preferred option) or hold it for pickup at your local office. The last thing I want to do after a vacation is head to a post office to make a line to get a bunch of mostly junk mail.

So Easy, JUST DO IT

It’s so simple and painless to do it, we do it as a general rule before every trip. I set a calendar reminder two days before each flight and have it set up.

Just visit the USPS at this link and hold your mail before your next flight.