Although now sick with the flu, I’ve had no time to rest in an effort to speed my recovery. Forcing myself to continue running around, making phone calls and completing tasks in preparation for leaving Minnesota in five days has been trying.
Tom’s retirement party is tomorrow, Saturday at 5 PM. My voice sounds like Minnie Mouse and I’m weak, coughing and foggy headed. Perhaps, this is Nature’s way of warning me to slow down. Not a good time to teach me a lesson, Mother Nature!
The mailing service, MailLink requires notarization of legal documents with literally no daytime hours for Tom to go to a notary. After speaking with Eric at MailLink he reassured me that there was nothing to worry about.
He suggested we go ahead, sign up, pay the $156 annual fee for the largest mailbox via PayPal to get the documents notarized when we get situated in Scottsdale. In the interim, they won’t be able (due to state laws) to forward our mail until they receive the forms.
Over the past several months I’ve reduced the amount of mail that we receive by contacting the various companies requesting they only send online notifications and statements. Most were able to comply.
In the near future, it appears that snail mail will become a thing of the past as evidenced by the financial difficulties of the USPS. Today’s fast paced technological advances continue to have an enormous effect on the use of paper and mail in general. Perhaps, in time as we travel, we’ll no longer need the services of any form of a mailing service, receiving all communications by email
A portion of Tom’s income from his work will no longer be paid by direct deposit as his paycheck had been over the past many years. This in itself presents a dilemma. How do we get the paper check “mailed” to us into the bank? He requested direct deposit for these payments to no avail.
We considered asking one of our adult children to receive the payments by mail immediately depositing the checks. Realizing how annoying and inconvenient it would be for them with their full and busy lives to be watching for the checks and subsequently depositing them, we decided it was too much of an imposition. We didn’t want that inconvenience ourselves! Why would we impose this on our children?
In speaking with MailLink, they suggested we do what their other clients do in a similar situations:
- Use the provided MailLink address as our mailing address
- Provide them with deposit slips and mailing envelopes made out to to our bank’s department that handles incoming snail mail deposits.
- MailLink opens the envelope, scans a copy of the check to our email, signs the back of the check, “deposit only” and then mail in one of the envelopes provided. No deposit slip is required per this service offered by our bank.
- Within 2-3 days the deposit it made into our bank at which point they email us a receipt for the deposit.
- Check online banking to verify the receipt of the deposit.
Cumbersome? Yes? Alternative? Hire an accountant or certified money manager and pay $100’s in fees each year? No, thank you.
Next task? Oh, yes, they continue. Insuring our belongings. With the documents signed on the sale of the house, we are ending our homeowners insurance on the day we leave, October 31st. At that point insurance ends on our belongings as well. Today, I will wrap up the details of our new “personal property” insurance.
The estate sale is in progress. Yesterday, the first day, was a bit challenging. It was snowing, the roads were slippery and the wind was whipping at the time the sale was to begin.
At 7:00 am yesterday morning, sick and miserable, I showed up the house to meet with the estate sale people to finalize pricing and details. The wind and sleet on the peninsula felt like a hurricane as I nearly was blown away finding my way from the driveway to the front door in the dark. Somehow, the detector for the exterior lights were turned off.
By 9:00 am, as the sale began, I was visiting with our friend and neighbor two doors down, peeking out the window to witness the caravan of cars driving down the narrow road to examine and hopefully buy “our stuff.” It was hard to watch. I left an hour later for a delightful stress-reducing lunch with the neighbors at our favorite local restaurant, as opposed to the breakfast we had planned earlier. Its so hard to say goodbye. The worst is yet to come.
Once again cocooned in this comfy leather love seat as I write today, my voice is gone, my throat less sore and the cough is slightly better as I prepare for the tasks of yet another day in limbo:
- Finalize personal property insurance policy
- Go to bank to get extra deposit slips and arrange for the mailing service to send them the pension checks
- Pack a box of overflow to be shipped to Scottsdale and held by UPS until we arrive on November 4th.
- Check on final details for Tom’s party tomorrow.
- Grocery shop and prepare dinner as I have done each evening since moving here last Sunday. After all, a good house guest must earn their keep.
Yep. Five more days.