Discover Buenos Aires

When we decided to make the move to Buenos Aires a few months ago, we also decided to start switching as many of our accounts to e-bills as we could.  This resulted in an immediate reduction in the amount of mail we received (other than junk mail and catalogs). However, not everyone has an e-bill option yet and there are many other important things that may come via the postal mail too - tax notices, random checks, bills, etc. We needed to find a solution to deal with those.

Our first thought was to forward mail to my mother and ask her to open it for us, but we didn’t want to put that responsibility on her. Luckily, a quick Google search turned up an even better solution - Earth Class Mail. With Earth Class Mail, you sign up and then forward all of your mail to one of their addresses - a PO Box or an actual street address for a few bucks more. When they receive your postal mail, they scan in the envelope and then put it up on the web for you to view through a secure web site.  When you login, you can view all your scanned mail and choose from the following options: open it and scan the contents, recycle it, shred it, archive it, or forward-ship it. You can even wait and batch all your mail into one shipment. The pricing is very reasonable too. We chose the $19.95/month plan which allows us to use one account for up to five different addresses (personal and business), and scans up to 100 mail pieces and 100 pages of mail per month.

The online setup is easy, but you will also need to mail them a notarized Form 1583, so make sure you give yourself enough time to do this.  Your new postal address will then look something like this:

Your Name
PO BOX 55071 #12345
Boston, MA 02205-5071

Their security and privacy procedures are pretty strenuous too. And, this year they are adding electronic check deposit too!  Definitely check them out for a great expat postal mail solution.

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