This may have already been mentioned so please forgive me if so...
I am moving back to the UK from the USA in November and will be staying in a short term cottage for the first month or so while we look for a property to rent or buy. Since I will be moving at least twice in a short term and won't have a permanent location at the beginning I am wondering what my options are for having my mail forwarded from the USA? When I asked my local office they told me to just fill out the standard change of address form and it would be forwarded - which seems amazing as the mail would obviously cost more to send to the UK than somewhere in the US. Has anyone else experience with this?
My other question is does Royal Mail still offer the Poste Restante (sp?) service or individual post boxes that one can rent short term? I am not sure what is best to do with moving around so that I can still receive important mail. I don't care about the circulars and such but do care about the bills, magazine subscriptions, etc.
Thanks in advance for any input.

USPS does indeed forward personal mail from the US to UK (anywhere in the world) for 1 year free of charge. I used this service. I did not notice anything absent in the few things that came. There are no guarantees.

I don't know but I wonder if you could advise USPS of a change of foreign address once you are outside UK, although I seem to recall it has to be done by sending in a form and not available online for foreign address. Problem is can you be sure that nothing will go missing, I doubt it.

Circulars and non-personal mail are screened out by USPS at their own discretion and presumably destroyed or sent to occupier of your old address. This may include magazines!!

However, to be absolutely sure, do what you can before you leave US to change / cancel routine US mail.
Personally advise potential senders of your future address - and update further changes.
Or at least advise senders not to mail anything until you advise a new address - I expect this need arises often within US given the rate that people move about.

For bills and statements, switch from paper to electronic versions. Is safer that way and guaranteed.

Royal Mail does have PO Boxes, intended for businesses.
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/c...6&catId=400040

Royal Mail charges a fee for most everything, I not yet found a free service. Forwarding (redirection) to new address http://www2.royalmail.com/delivery/i...l/redirections, holding for holidays http://www2.royalmail.com/delivery/i...-mail/keepsafe , there is a fee.

Would be easier / cheaper for you to have an arrangement with your temp addresses in UK to hold / redirect any stray letters after you moved on.

I had a similar situation, as many people do, of not having a permanent address immediately after returning to the UK.

I got around this by having the new owner of my house give any mail to a neighbour for the first month. She held onto it, and then sent it all in a shoe box (I paid for the postage).

Prior to leaving, I filled in a USPS change of address form and signed it, but left the "new address" section blank, and left with my neighbour. When I had a new address, I emailed it to my neighbour, she filled in this part on the change of address form, and returned it to the USPS (it only has to be left in your mailbox, and the mail deliverer picks it up, AFAIK).

Alternatively, you could take one home, fill it in when you are ready, and send it to someone in the US (in an envelope), and they can take out and put in the mail for you. But you would still have to have an intermediate arrangement for someone to send your mail to you for the first few weeks.

Yes, it's pretty amazing that this 1-year service doesn't cost a penny!

From the Royal Mail;

Poste Restante
If you're travelling but want to stay in touch, you can take your letterbox with you. People can address mail to you and send it to any UK Post Officeâ„¢ * and some main post offices in larger towns abroad. You can use the service for up to three months in any one UK town for any letters.
* The Poste Restante service is subject to operational capability.

I think Poste Restante is one of the services specified by the Universal Postal Union, and which all signatories have to provide..