Dear Future Self,
February 22, 2010 5:39 PM   Subscribe

Can I send postal mail to a place/service that will forward my letter/package at a set date in the future?

I know there are services that do this with email, but I am looking for physical objects. I am willing to pay a fee for this. My criteria are that this needs to be reputable, no one will look inside, and if the holder dies I still want my package.

This is the "Hold this for me until I ask for it" sort of idea, but I don't want anyone I know to do the holding.

Is this possible? Nothing sent will be illegal in my jurisdiction.

I'm thinking of a 3 month to 3 year horizon, but could imagine up to 20 years if this was possible.

I did try google. Seems like something like this is obvious, but not finding anything.
posted by cjorgensen to Grab Bag (7 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
You may want to Google remailing services then contact the services directly to ask about them holding the item as opposed to just forwarding it on.
posted by MsKim at 5:58 PM on February 22, 2010


http://www.texasremail.com/remailingform.htm Comes up as the first link when you search for "remailing services", and on their remailing form they show that you can have it remailed on a specific date.
posted by banished at 6:06 PM on February 22, 2010


Earth Class Mail might do what you need.

You choose what items you ship, where to ship, and even when. Never again are you limited to one shipping address or predetermined frequencies.

You might want to call them first to find out if they do exactly what you need.
posted by nitsuj at 6:13 PM on February 22, 2010


Why not entrust it with a relative? Perhaps someone that is not likely to move and have to worry about moving your parcel with them? And someone that is mature but not over the hill (if you're looking at decades).

If a cousin or sibling or niece or nephew were to ask me to do this for them I'd be more than glad to hold onto such a parcel for future mailing.
posted by labwench at 6:14 PM on February 22, 2010


I'm not sure what the details of your requirements are, but why not put it in a safe deposit box at a bank? Quite safe, secure, and private, and you can retrieve it whenever you want.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:20 PM on February 22, 2010


Don't lawyers do stuff like this sometimes? Or is that only in the movies?
posted by shothotbot at 6:47 PM on February 22, 2010


Response by poster: The safe deposit box won't work for exactly the reason that I would have access to it. I basically wanted to accomplish the task of taking the temptation out of accessing an item for a period of time. For example, sending myself my credit card in a year. I can't use it for a year, but I get it back. That's sort of a bad example, since I could always call for another one, but that was the idea.

And the idea of giving items to a relative is weird, because then I have to explain what I want to do, and also have to trust said person to make sure it's not lost.

This is why I was hoping I could just pay someone.

The remailing service is kinda cool. Thanks.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:03 AM on February 25, 2010


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