Eliminate all Postal Mail: We signed up for online notification and bill paying for everything possible. Then we made a list of weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual due dates. Between the two, we don't miss any payments. We still need a few items sent to us, such as, DMV tags, annual membership cards and some government forms that cannot be emailed or accessed by the web. These steps will minimize how often you need your mail sent to you. We alsocanceled all magazines or any other periodic mailings!
Post Office Mail: You will need to have a "mail forwarding service", someone to receive your mail and send it on to you. We are fortunate to have Ellen's sister Janice for ours. She picks up the mail; reads Ellen's certain items; faxes when necessary and holds on to the rest. Janice has only sent mail to us a couple of times in six years (04-2012). When we need something, we just have her send the items to General Delivery at a city in our path. Note that each city has a single post office for general delivery; you must find that office on line. Lacking an angelic relative, you can sign up for a number of mailing services. We will be providing a list of those we researched.
Cell Phone Tips: You may have your favorite companies, but we have been using Verizon for 18 years and the coverage has been amazing. We have been at only one RV Park, Outdoor Resorts in Aguanga, California, where Verizon did not work and another carrier did. They now have a Verizon tower! (11-2008). We have been in many places where we had good reception and others could not make calls or the calls were dropped.
Internet Tips: Again the Verizon Aircard has been great. We can't tell you how many times we have been on roads with no buildings in sight and had good coverage. We need the Internet Monday to Friday, as we run our software business. We check our coverage at an RV park check in. If coverage is not adequate, we leave. Another reason not to get reservations. We can also call Verizon and they will "predicct" how good the coverage will be.
Email Tips: We send a lot of email. Our email accounts are not web based, like Yahoo and Gmail. You can't compose your email offline with these accounts. Many times we compose our weekly emails offline and send them when we have a fast connection.
Faxing Tips: Our phone service is www.OneBox.com. They provide an 800 number, an 800 fax line, voice mail and many more features.
