Set Up Mail Forwarding Before You Move, Not After

You will forget at least one institution that still has your old address — a bank, an old employer, a tax office, a subscription. Set up official mail forwarding from your postal service before moving day, so anything sent to your old address in the following months still reaches you, instead of a stranger or a locked mailbox. This buys you time to update your address everywhere without losing anything important in the gap.

Forwarding is a safety net, not a substitute for updating your address directly — go through your accounts systematically afterward. Treat the first few weeks of forwarded mail as a checklist: every piece that arrives at the old address is a reminder of one more place you still need to update.