How do I forward my parents mail to my address and I am out of state?

Last month my Dad moved into Independent Living and what a job it was trying to change his address on everything. I went on-line with the USPS to change Dad's address from my parent's house over to my house.... then I went in person to the Post Office as my parents also had a post office box and I needed to turn in the key, and I had that mail forwarded over to my house.

It takes anywhere from 5 to 10 days for a letter to go from the old address to the new address. Yikes, I am getting a large pile of mail every day.

I went on-line to change Dad's social security to the address where he is now living, and to change Dad's direct deposit to his new bank. I also set up a lot of other new on-line accounts so I could keep track what is going on. Good heavens, it's like having a full-time job trying to keep track of everything. I bought a lot of 3-ring binders.

I had to take over all the finances since my Mom [98] recently passes as that was her job, Dad was clueless about all this stuff, and would think a bill was an advertisement and throw it out.... [sigh]. There is still my parent's house to deal with, transfer of all the utilities billing as the electric/gas/water need to be on so I can sort through all the stuff in there.

Lesson learned, don't close the old direct deposit bank account until a month afterwards. I didn't realize how many direct payments my parents were using for utilities [statements were thrown out by Dad], thus late charges were showing up because the old bank accounts were closed. Oops.

You go to the post office in the zip code where she is getting mail now, fill out a little 'temporary change' forwarding address which lasts about 3 months so everything starts coming addressed to her c/o your name. They won't keep doing this indefinitely, so once you see what is coming you start the longer tedious process of notifying every entity of a change of address. Some things need copy of POA with the request for change of address, or else a letter you have her sign with her own name. Accounts which you already have online access to are easiest to do the change of address on, so if you have done that before on utilities, phone bills, insurance, etc it does help when there is an address change. Loose ends can turn up 6 months later, after important mail starts getting returned to the sender as 'undeliverable'....

I will say that once my mom went into a NH, the amount of mail she received exploded. CMS sends out their updates every 2 weeks or so on items billed & paid for & then all the notices of changes.....a forest of mail annually. Ditto for secondary insurance like BCBS. If she is on Medicaid, the Stare programs do the same. Then all the letters, statements, vendor reports from the NH. Plus all the regular mail.

You may want to consider getting a private mail box that is moms new address. Often UPS shipping centers rent these. But what may be better is to get a box at a private shipping & mail center as they will call you if something that looks important comes in...or the box is full. Often these are near colleges & universities. You rent it in your name with moms name as a secondary on the box. You may find that It works well to have everything mom go into 1 address & totally apart from your mail. You go once every X # of days, get her mail & deal with it. Just could make things a bit more manageable.

The USPS has a change of address form online, or local post office, you can pick up a change of address packet. Also, you can call (assuming you are HCP or POA) whatever companies , (in my case, it was homeowners insurance, gas, electric, utilities, cable, phone, credit cards, banks, etc.) And let them know verbally of the address change. Good luck and it is a bit of work.