A Mail Plan for a Long Trip, in the Order You Should Do It

Leaving for three months or more, and coming back to a functioning life, takes about two hours of preparation spread over six weeks. Doing it in the last two days is where people end up with a suspended driver licence and an expired card.

Six weeks out: decide the shape

Three options, and the choice depends almost entirely on length.

Under thirty days: a postal hold is usually enough, free, and reversible. Terms are at usps.com/manage/hold-mail.htm.
One to six months: a mail service that scans, so you can see what arrives without anybody shipping anything.
Six months or more: the same, plus a serious pass at moving everything to electronic delivery, because the pile you come back to is otherwise substantial.

If you are setting up a service, do it now rather than later: signup requires a witnessed Form 1583, which is a real errand. See the Form 1583 article.

Four weeks out: switch off the paper

Go through the senders one by one and move each to electronic delivery. Banks, cards, insurers, utilities, brokerages, pension providers, the phone company. This is tedious and it is the single highest-value hour in the whole process, because every account you convert is one that cannot generate an urgent envelope while you are away.

Two that people forget: the vehicle registration renewal and any professional licence renewal. Both arrive by post, both have deadlines, and both have consequences.

Three weeks out: the three that cannot wait

Some post genuinely needs a human response within days. Identify who might send it and make a plan for each.

Court and government correspondence. Jury summonses, tax notices, anything from a licensing board. These have deadlines and ignoring them escalates.
Replacement cards and identity documents. A reissued bank card sent to an address you cannot reach is a card you have to cancel and reissue again.
Anything with a renewal date. Insurance, registration, professional licences, passports.

For each, either move it electronic, or arrange for somebody you trust to open it, or make sure your mail service will scan it on arrival without you asking.

Two weeks out: the federal and state updates

If your mailing address is changing, update it where it is recorded. The IRS process is described in its address changes guidance, and businesses use Form 8822-B. Benefits agencies, the voter roll and your state motor vehicle agency each need telling separately.

If you are only away temporarily and the address is not changing, skip all of this. Changing your address of record for a trip creates more work than it saves.

One week out: the mechanics

Set up the postal hold or start the forwarding schedule.
Turn on Informed Delivery if it is available for your address. Seeing the outside of what arrives, free, is worth the two minutes.
Check two-factor authentication on your mail account, your bank and your email, and make sure none of the recovery routes depends on receiving a physical letter.
Tell one person you trust where the box is and how to reach the store.

While you are away

Look at the envelope images weekly. It takes ninety seconds and it is the whole point of the arrangement. Scan only what needs action. Forward rarely and in bulk, because forwarding is priced per shipment and the forwarding cost estimator will show you what weekly shipments do to a budget.

Coming back

Cancel the hold or the forwarding schedule a few days before you land, not after. Ask the store to hold anything bulky rather than shipping it. And spend half an hour going through what accumulated, because the useful thing about having done this once is that the second trip takes twenty minutes to prepare instead of two hours.