6 Things a P.O. Box Can Do For a Freelancer
When it comes to postal service, I really lucked out. The nearest post office is less than half a mile away. Every afternoon, when I reach the point in my day where staring at the computer screen any more is impossible, I walk over to the post office and collect my mail from my P.O. box.
As far as tools for freelancers go, I think a P.O. box is often overlooked: they’re useful and can even solve a few problems particularly for freelancers.
1. The Problem of Professionalism
It’s all well and good to work out of your home — or the nearest coffee shop — but there are just some clients that will see such an address and think that it automatically makes you unprofessional. Using a P.O. box is a fast way to avoid that discussion. Even large businesses use P.O. boxes as an easy way to manage mail, so seeing one listed as your address won’t bother even the snobbiest of clients. You can even choose an address in a different neighborhood if you feel that will up your professionalism even more.
And for those coffee shop-dwelling freelancers, it’s much easier to set up a P.O. box than trying to convince the postman to deliver your mail to your ‘place of business.’
2. Keeping Your Money Safe
I’ve lived in neighborhoods where it was crucial to get the mail out of the mailbox immediately. If I didn’t, I couldn’t be sure that I’d actually get all of my mail — and that includes the checks paying for my freelance work. And as incidents of identity theft have gone up, it’s not just checks that I worry about. Between contracts and tax forms, so much personal information passes through my mail box that I feel safest when no one without the right key can touch it. You might work primarily with online payments and contracts, but everyone runs into the occasional client who wants to handle details via post.
3. Protecting Your Packages
The same problems with receiving your mail are only intensified when it comes packages. With a P.O. box, the post office will just hold any packages that come your way (although they won’t accept packages for you from other carriers). With one simple step, you can eliminate the chance that the postman will just drop a box on your front step, out where anyone can grab it. You also don’t have to worry about having to sign for anything in your mail: if the post office needs confirmation on a certified letter or package, they’ll get you to sign while you’re picking up the rest of your mail.
4. Concealing Your Personal Address
I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to hand out my home address to every potential client I find online. Considering how easy it is for an email containing a snail mail address to get passed around, I think it’s a pretty reasonable precaution to give out the address of my P.O. box, rather than my home. I haven’t had a problem yet, but I don’t particularly want to, either.
5. Eliminating changes of address
If you find that your home address is less than stable — maybe you move apartments every so often, maybe you take extended trips — a P.O. box can guarantee that you don’t have to try to update your contact information with each of your clients every time you move. And if you’re on the go regularly, you don’t have to worry about arranging for someone to pick up your mail — just let the post office know that you’ll be gone and they’ll just keep stacking the envelopes in your box.
6. Getting out of the house
While getting out of the house isn’t the biggest deal to all freelancers, it’s surprisingly easy to slip into the habit of staying at the computer for days at a time. Even if you can’t arrange for a P.O. box a short walk away, going and getting your mail can provide an incentive to leave home. After all, you don’t want to leave a check in your P.O. box when it could be in your bank account or your landlord’s hands.
Getting Your P.O. Box
In most countries, getting a P.O. box is just a matter of contacting your local post office or checking online. The U.S. Post Office, for instance, lets you do all the paperwork for setting up a P.O. box online. You’ll probably be asked to pay for six months or a full year at a time: for a small box, about $20 per six months is normal. Don’t forget to keep your receipts, by the way. A P.O. box is a business expense and deductible on your taxes.
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Great post! I agree 100% and a P.O. Box can make life a little easier. Just remembered, I need to renew my P.O. Box
You bring up some good points. I’ve been considering a PO box lately, and I think this article really helps me make a final decision.
I use a mail forwarding agency for the same reason, prestigious real street address somewhere and they send my mail where I am.
What mail forwarding company do you use? Do you like them? Thanks,
I have been doing this since I started. It’s good advice. I chose my local UPS Store (formerly Mailboxes Etc) instead of the post office. The service is better, and the lines are shorter. Plus if a client wants to drop something off at my “office,” it’s not problem. The friendly staff gladly accept it for me. Or if I need to leave something for a client to pick up – same deal.
Depending on where you live, too, owning a P.O. Box in a different city (probably a nearby one, but it depends on your tenacity) can reduce your taxes, or allow you to work in that city (maybe it’s just an L.A. thing, since we’re divided into little kingdoms that don’t play nice together, but it may apply elsewhere, as well).
Oh, how I wish this article had been published a couple of months ago! Earlier this year, I had cheques stolen from my mailbox; one of them was actually cashed, but fortunately the others were in foreign currency and therefore impossible to deposit without proper ID. After contacting everyone invonved (clients, banks, etc.) and filing a futile police report, I somehow managed to convince my frustratingly dense landlady to install secure mailboxes. Although the $125/year they charge around here for a P.O. box is a bit high, it could have saved me so much aggravation…
I’m with you on having a P.O. box to ensure the safety of the mail. A couple of years ago, our street had some sketchy-looking people living in a rental house. We thought they were involved in something illegal, and the neighborhood consensus was drug trafficking.
We were wrong. Turned out that the sketchy people were identity thieves, and they left our neighborhood in one big hurry. (I think the police were on to them.)
All of these are great points. I talked to my accountant about what things I can and can’t write off and I was told that if you work from home as a freelancer, it’s harder to determine when your actual “work day” starts. If you start your day by checking your p.o. box, everything after that counts as business day things. I don’t know the particulars of how all that works exactly, but it’s definitely something else to look into.
Wow. All very good points that I hadn’t considered. If I’m ever to the point of receiving physical mail from clients, I’ll definitely keep this in mind!
This is a great article – very good advice. I use a P O Box for my business and I agree with all 6 points mentioned in this article. The cost is nominal and well worth it.
This is what a UPS Store box is for, not a PO box. With a UPS box you have all the same advantages plus: the ability to drop off/receive UPS/Fedex/courier packages, better accountability because you can talk to the actual store owner, and many stores will even text message or phone you when you have a delivery.
Thanks for the article. I was thinking that people would think a P.O. Box would show that I don’t have my own location, but if big business do it that sounds good to me.
How do you guys feel about virtual addresses? We’ve been thinking about getting one of those.
Good Idea, I had an issue with a threatening client, and hoped they wouldn’t come knocking on my door..
This is definitely a must-do. Not that personal info is hard to find these days, anyway. But if concerned at all about a PO Box not being professional sounding enough, many Mail places not part of the US Postal Service use the address of the box store, and your box is the “Suite” number.
Depending on your specific field, some companies may consider a PO Box as your only address somewhat of a “fly-by-night” operation.
As you said, the Post Office won’t accept packages from other delivery companies, and carriers like UPS will not deliver to a PO Box. It has to be a physical address to ship UPS (unless they have recently changed that and I haven’t been told yet), and this type of mail “Store” that uses the suite address will accept deliveries from any carrier, as well as pickups from most carriers daily.
That’s a very good point. I hadn’t considered renting a mailbox, but now I’m definitely looking into it. I live in an apartment, and while USPS and FedEx have been good at delivering packages to the front office when I’m not home, other carriers have just left them on my doorstep. I about had a heart attack when UPS left a $150 DVD set I ordered under the welcome mat.
Hi, there is also another option, that you can have your mails delivered to a PO BOX in any location in the US scanned and emailed to you and you can decide what to do with every letter, for example http://www.earthclassmail.com does it.
My local P.O. was out of available boxes. This post has convinced me to try again.
If you rent a box at a UPS store (formerly MailBox Etc) they will accept and sign for packages from other carriers, they email me when I receive a package. Also, the address looks like a “suite” number, for instance, mine is the street address where the store is located and #153. UPS store will also forward my mail to wherever I am. I’ve been freelancing since 1992 and you definitely should keep your home address private, you can’t be too careful nowadays.
If you merely want a PO box for professional purposes and security of mail isn’t an issue, you could look into setting up a mail redirect service from your PO box to your residence. This could be worth considering if nearby post offices don’t have any boxes available and you need to go further afield to obtain one.
I have had a PO box since 1993 since I found myself sort of homeless for a while. I often joked that I wished I could just live in the box…although it was a bit small for that. Since then, I have never gone back to regular mail. Now I know that the mail in my home box is junk. And I usually only gather the contents of the PO box once a week which cuts down on piles of unopened mail. If the post office goes broke, what will we do?
Great,
Some new ways to get out of P. O. Box.
Really must try things.
I haven’t wanted to get a P.O. Box because I can’t stand the idea of having to drive somewhere every day to get my mail, especially since I don’t receive business mail every day, but I like the idea of a redirect service to my home mailbox. Security isn’t really an issue in our neighborhood, since our mailboxes require a key to open them.
I live in a Condo so security takes my packages. My mail goes to my mail box. The only mail i get is Fedex and cheques.
When I decided to go full-time freelance one of the first things I did was get a P.O. Box and boy am I glad I did.
You can also get PO Boxes that look like street addresses. Check with the post office.
I decided to get a third party mailbox, and the cost for the box rental was $40 a year. Well worth the price for the peace of mind. Plus now I don’t have to worry about changing my address if I have to move.
Good post. Here in the UK I have a PO BOX that auto routes to my home address. Handy if your post office is not local.
(follow me at http://twitter.com/paulhale)
For me a PO Box would cost me more than it would ever save me and add more hassle.
1. The Problem of Professionalism
I’ve worked out of my home studio for seven years now and not once have I lost a job based on the fact I work out of my home studio. Professionalism is how you relate to a client through out the entirety of a business relationship and ultimately how well you execute and deliver your work. It has very little if nothing to do with a physical address. If they can’t tell by your work you’re a pro than having a PO Box won’t help you.
In all honesty if a client is going to fore go the quality of my work and read into my address like tea leaves than it’s a good bet they’d be a pain in the butt anyway.
2. Keeping Your Money Safe
All the mailboxes I’ve used for the past 11 years have all been locking ones. Old school “honor system” boxes are of course problematic. And it’s the latter that has caused the rate of mail theft to climb. If you are that worried than invest in your business and buy a mailbox from these guys you can’t break into them. http://www.fortknoxmailbox.com I believe that would be a tax deductible expense too. (Holy cow that site is ugly! Freelance web designers, there is a good lead.)
3. Protecting Your Packages
I work from my home studio so this has never been a problem. The only problem I did have one time is the UPS guy put the box behind a bush and I didn’t see it. Neither UPS or FedEx has ever had an issue delivering to my front door?
4. Concealing Your Personal Address
Once again never had any problem having my address on my business cards so I don’t care about having it in a mail box either.
5. Eliminating changes of address
This is the only point I’d agree with, it would make that easier but still the USPS is the only mailing service in the world that will forward your mail up to six months, so a little planning solves this.
6. Getting out of the house
If you need a PO Box to do this you have bigger social issues you need to take care of.
So getting a PO Box for me would mean my overhead goes up $20, my gas bill increases, more time wasted driving and checking the PO Box etc. I just don’t use physical mail that much for my business. I do 99% of all my invoicing digitally. I rarely get any paperwork physically, that too is digital as well. I get more packages than anything have never had an issue with it.
Matter of fact I just killed my fax the other day and won’t be using that dinosaur anymore.
What makes us freelancers is the fact we can provide the same level of service, passion, quality, dedication, enjoyment, fun, creativity and every other business attribute a potential client wants from a professional brick and mortar business, but we can do that from the comfort of our own home, we don’t need no stinking PO Boxes!
Besides it’s fun to do a Google Street View of another freelancers place of business and PO Boxes ruin that too. So there.
Von
You can actually rent mailboxes with street addresses so you look like you have a real office! Great post! @23Kazoos
Good post! I plead guilty to reason #6.
I think there are pros and cons of having a P.O. Box, and of course you should take into account your personal/professional situation when considering whether to use one or not. But if you get a lot of business mail then I think it would be useful to use a P.O. Box. One advantage would be it would keep your personal mail separate from your business mail.
Von- you raise some good points! However, the big reason that a PO Box still sounds appetizing to me is a different reason than what others have listed. It’s protection/security for my family. Granted, not many are going to be able to do a lot with a simple address, BUT there is an increasing amount of information available about us all on the internet these days. Combine that information with a physical address, and just imagine what a loon could do if he/she were motivated (twitter for example gives out some incredibly detailed personal information for example that someone could use to discover what belongings you have, etc). Not that it would happen, but I like to err on the side of safety in this case, especially when it could potentially effect my wife, kids, etc.
At any rate, I probably will still wait on the PO Box for a short while longer… I’m only a quarter freelance right now and use alternate ways around giving out my physical address.
i agree with the great reasons for a po box–i’ve loved mine for years. the one huge negative though is that so many people have accounts with fedex or ups and the po won’t accept those. it’s a big hassle for those fedex/ups folks to get their mailroom to actually *mail* something, and they hassle me for a fedex address. i’m thinking of switching to a ups box when my po box is up, as ups will accept anything and everything.
Maybe if your location makes it convenient to get a PO box it can be worth it, but for me I brought the PO box to my driveway and bought one of those Fort Knox Mailboxes. I agree with VON about saving time and money because around here PO boxes are not cheap anymore. (I don’t agree with him on the website as it fits the product). Add in the gas and my time involved and it isn’t worth it for me for a PO box. Before giving up, I would suggest checking out http://www.fortknoxmailbox.com/. OK, I put my two cents in….
Stephen – security or privacy is a myth. Based only on your posting here I could probably find out every detail about you and your family in a matter of hours, including social security, tax records, employment and criminal history (if any – criminal, that is!)
The point is not to scare you, but to make you aware that privacy is an illusion. A PO Box isn’t going to hide or protect you.
I’ve done without a PO Box for a dozen years and I agree with Von that it would be more hassle than its worth.
Stephen,
Seven years ago when I launched my business site both my wife and I were concerned about putting our physical address on it. But I think it was just mild paranoia. I’ve never had any issue with having my address posted.
I’ve never had a stalker (Can’t knock on wood I have a glass desk, DOH!) I have had some crazy chick email me all matter of bizarre accolades a few years back and I had to block her IP. I’ve spotted her screen name in a few other locations online and it kind of creeps me out but that’s as close to anything like that I’ve ran into. (If creepy chick is reading this I suggest you check out Stephen’s site! LOL)
Seriously though I’ve had my gas card stolen more times than anything online. It happened once and the gas station owners brother in law charged $900 over a week before we got a call from the owner saying he suspected his brother in law was doing this. So I called Chevron and they wouldn’t do anything about, they just cancelled my card and said “It would cost us more than what he spent.” Nice.
It might be a good option for some though, it just doesn’t fit my modus operandi.
Von
This is a great idea for the future of my career. It’s a bit unpractical as I’m still in school and obtaining a web development degree, but once I forge into a career full-time, a can see how a P.O. box will be quite useful. Thanks for all the useful information!
I got a P.O. Box when I first declared myself a business. I found it wasn’t used by many of my clients, in fact most of them put my name and not the company name on payments. Most of the mail in my P.O. box was for former renters of that box. And then my mail address is a secure box, and my actual home address is different. So I eventually dropped the USPS P.O. Box.
However, I really like the idea of the box store (mail box etc, or UPS store or whatever)
I really have problems getting things shipped to me. USPS will accept packages to my mailing address, and UPS and FEDEX will deliver to my physical address, but not my USPS address, and DHL claimed they TRIED to deliver something that had to be signed for to my physical address, but never actually showed up (I waited). When I buy something and have it shipped, I don’t always know which way they will ship it, and sometimes they ship several ways (and things get sent to the weirdest places). If I put both addresses, SOMETIMES they actually put both on the package, blah , blah , blah… You can see the mess. SO I think I will look for the UPS store solution.
Whilst the process is much more long winded and involved (with good reason) in Australia, the reasoning for having a PO Box is just as valid and important.
Get a PO Box for the #1 reason: Family anonymity: Keep your family and business separate by having an address for each. As an extra, the annual costs for the PO Box are a tax-deductible expense.
Being also a collector, collecting stuff, I’ve been using P.O. Box for about 5 years already, and it’s crucial to manage stuff offline in a safe way, also you can plan your time when you need to pick up your things.
thanks for the post. I have a chocolate business and i didn’t have a address to use. I was going to use my personal one but after reading your post i feel more comfortable with a P.O box. thanks!
Letters can be kept in storage for up to 6 months, any longer than this will result in a charge to your account.