If you will be moving from one location to another in the next few weeks, it is important to do an address change. When you have mail that is coming to your home, or if you have a PO Box, you need to alert all of the people that are sending you mail on a regular basis of where your new address is going to be. Whether these are companies that are sending you bills, or people that you know, they need to be aware that you will have a different address. There is a step-by-step process that you must go through for changing your address, one that is very simple that you can accomplish in a short period of time.
How To Update Your Mailing Address
The first place that you need to go is the United States Postal Service. This is where all of the mail that you receive is going to go through. USPS will be able to forward all of the mail that you are receiving to your previous address to the new location where you will soon be at. They give you six months in order to contact all of the people that are sending you mail, providing them with the new address that you will have. It is a courtesy that the United States Postal Service provides, allowing you to get your business in order so that everyone sending you mail can be alerted about your new address in a timely manner.
How Much Does It Cost?
When you go to your local post office, you can get a form. You can fill that out, usually within 10 minutes, and hand it back to a postal worker. They will charge you a dollar to verify who you are, and once that is done, the process will begin. You do need to bring a debit or credit card with you for this transaction. It is simply part of the process of verifying who you are so that they can begin to forward your mail. The other option that you have is to go to the USPS website. They have a section dedicated to changing your address. It is the same cost, and as with anything on the web, you can use your credit or debit card in order to complete this transaction. One other option that you have if you do not want to go to your post office, or do this online, is that you can call their toll-free number. However, as with the previous to examples, you will need to give them your debit or credit card number so that the verification fee can be paid. It should be noted that you are going to ask a postal worker for form 3575. However, if you simply tell them that you need to change your address, they will know that is the form to provide you with once you make that request.
The Next Part Of The Process
Once you have done your change of address with the U.S. Postal Service, now the real work begins. You will need to contact all of the companies and individuals that will need to get your new address. Many people think that when you do a change of address, somehow the USPS is going to change your address for you automatically. However, they are merely providing you with a forwarding service. It is your job to contact your bank, credit card companies, and your place of work if they are sending you a check every month in the mail. If you have magazine subscriptions, or something similar, they often have a place on their website when you log into your account to do a change of address. If you purchase merchandise from large online companies such as Amazon, you will need to update this information as well. You need to contact friends and family members. They are going to need your new address as you only have six months of forwarding. Your driver’s license also needs to be updated. This is also a form that you must fill out. This may take a couple of weeks, but once this part of the process is done, you will have likely changed all of your addresses with the vast majority of people and companies that are sending you mail.
Is There A Faster Way To Get This Done?
Once you understand what needs to be done, you may feel slightly overwhelmed. You may be receiving mail from 20 or 30 different businesses, and this can take a long time to change the addresses. That’s why you need to have a distinct schedule, one where you are changing your address with at least one business a day. You may want to start with where you work, your bank, and your credit card providers, doing one of these on a daily basis. What most people do is they get the forwarding started, but then they forget that they have to actually change their address at each individual location. By having a plan of action set up, one that can be done in a period of a month or two, they will realize that this process is not overwhelming at all.
Now that you know how to change your address when moving, you can see that it’s not that difficult. It may take a lot of time, but by doing just one or two address changes a day, you might be able to complete this in under a month. However, the very first step, doing a change of address with the U.S. Postal Service, is what will get things started. You need to do this first, and once this is accomplished, you can gradually change over all of your addresses. It might be helpful to work with your spouse who can do half of the work for you, or you might have family members that will be willing to assist you with this process. Regardless of how you get it done, you must first pay the dollar to get the USPS forwarding, and subsequently change each individual address with all of the businesses that are currently sending you physical mail.
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