Seven Tips on Securing Personal Information As a Nomadic Retiree
One advantage of being a nomadic early retiree is getting a head start on securing personal information, consolidating accounts, and closing old accounts before the inevitable arrival of cognitive decline. Not having a full-time job can give you time to focus on securing your personal information.
Traveling much of the year or living a nomadic lifestyle in early retirement also pushes one to secure personal information, as you will need to access banking, investment, tax, and accounting information while on the road domestically and overseas.
Why do we feel qualified to speak on this topic? Darren and I are both early retirees who left corporate careers in our late 40s. We are nomadic except for three months a year, when we spend time in our tiny home in the Great Plains of the United States. We’ve spent the past two years transitioning from a mix of documentation stored in the cloud, on laptops, and in paper copies to being 99% digital. With this transition, we realized that we needed to access a lot of information regardless of where we are in the world. Security is important to us, as well as the ability for loved ones to access our information remotely in case we get hit by the proverbial beer truck.
Once you get your physical copies (photos, documents, etc.) into electronic format and your passwords updated and documented, you will need a secure way to access your information. If you are nomadic in your early retirement, you will need a little more security in place than stationary folks. This blog offers our best tips on successfully securing your personal information, based on our experience.
A quick note—links to the recommended items may be Amazon affiliate links. This is because we make a small affiliate commission whenever you use these links. There is no additional cost when you click the link, but purchasing through the link does support our little blog!
Use a Password Manager
The most onerous task for us was to make all of our passwords unique, strong, and documented. This took days to complete. We approached this a little bit at a time and went alphabetically by company, website, or organization name.
Though it’s tempting, carrying a booklet with hundreds of passwords around the world is neither secure nor efficient. It would be a nightmare if you lost it, and it would be impossible for a family member to locate if you got into an accident or worse.
Therefore, the most secure way to protect your passwords is to use a password manager. While the news entertainment industry loves to feature security breaches on the nightly news, password managers are used by the military, large organizations and companies, the wealthy, and savvy consumers.
Our favorite password managers are those that are device-based with an App interface. In 2022 these included Bitwarden, 1Password, and Dashlane. These password managers don’t require an internet connection to use and they store your data locally on your device.
We personally use 1Password. We can connect from any one of our devices, like MacBook Pro, iPad, or iPhones. No one can hack into your account from a device that is outside your approved device list. We like 1Password because we only have to use one password to access all of our passwords. This allows us to eliminate paper-based password management and ultimately remember only one password—the one we use to unlock 1Password.
Password managers cost under $100 per year. When using a password manager, use a paid version and avoid free password managers.
If you want to learn more about the technical specifications of password managers with military-grade encryption, check out this article by Cybernews.
Use a Mail Forwarding Service
The first step in mail security is to eliminate as much physical mail as possible. You can greatly reduce the amount of mail by opting for online bills, magazine subscriptions, and opting out of junk mail. This is another task that took us a couple of days to complete!
As semi-nomadic early retirees, we’ve tried all the various options for receiving and forwarding mail domestically and overseas. The US Postal Service (USPS) allows you to have mail held for 30 days. You can forward mail permanently or temporarily with USPS for up to one year. When you forward your mail for, let’s say four months, the process is almost identical as informing the USPS of a permanent move. Last, and our favorite option, is a concierge mail forwarding service (more on those below).
If you have a trusted friend or family member, you could also have your mail forwarded to them. In this case, they become the middleman in all your mail affairs. There are several downsides to having friends or family take on this administrative task, however:
Your friend may get sick, need to travel for work or family reasons, or take an extended trip. You run a risk that your mail may not be handled in a timely manner.
Your family member may not have the knowledge or aptitude to scan or repackage your mail to send to you.
There is honestly some mail that you may not want your friend or family member to get for security, privacy, religious, or political reasons.
To avoid burdening friends or family members with our mail, we’ve used a couple of mail forwarding services. These services cost typical singles or couples around $250 per year.
iPostal1 Mail Forwarding Service
We used iPostal1 for a year while we walked the Camino de Santiago and did some faster travel overseas. I still had an LLC registered in North Carolina, so I wanted to have a North Carolina address until I got my LLC domesticated in South Dakota.
We used iPostal1 from July 2021 to July 2022. I highly recommend them if you like a modern web interface, personal touch from Mailbox Etc. employees, and low scanning and mailing costs.
Check out this video to learn more about how iPostal1 works:
Escapees RV Club and Mail Forwarding Service
We joined Escapees after learning about it on the GoWithLess YouTube Vlog. We have been using Escapees since November 2022. And no, you don’t need an RV or be an RV enthusiast to join and utilize their services!
Escapees offers more than mail forwarding. They can also support you in getting a domicile to a no-income tax state like South Dakota, Florida, or Texas.
Check out this video to learn more about how Escapees mail forwarding works:
If you need to switch from one mail forwarding service to another, we recommend an overlap of one or two months of service for a seamless transition. This way, you’ll be much less likely to lose mail in the shuffle.
When you do change your domicile to Texas, Florida or South Dakota, you will need to take a trip to that state to get your domicile set up. We chose South Dakota due to its proximity to our farm in Kansas and for a number of other reasons, including easy access to great outdoor pursuits while visiting the Rapid City area.
Use a Two Factor Authenticator App
If you’ve forgotten a password or need to access specific banking information, you’ve likely experienced two-factor authentication (2FA). In the US, this is typically facilitated by the banking institution sending you a text message or email. Some institutions do 2FA only through text message. This is great, except for when you are outside of your carrier’s coverage area or are overseas. Even with your US phone on roaming overseas, these messages don’t always go through.
To avoid 2FA via text, we use an application. Like password managers, these apps connect a device to an account, not a phone number. Other options include a software token, a hardware token, or biometric 2FA. We set up two factor authentication with financial institutions using an application and really like it both domestically and internationally. Check with your bank or financial institution to see which App or 2FA will work best for you. Some big names in the field are VIP Symantic, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, DuoMobile, and FreeOTP. Learn more about 2FA from BrainStation.
Use a VPN
VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a must if you use public Wi-Fi. When you shop/bank online, browse, or use public Wi-Fi, your activities are monitored potentially by governments, organizations, and hackers. When you use a VPN, your activity is encrypted, and your ISP and browsing history won’t be sold.
We’ve used NordVPN for years, and enjoy its ease of use and low cost. You can get VPN for one household for about $100 per year.
Want to learn more about VPNs and how they work? Check out this video from NordVPN:
Back-Up Your Computer and Important Files
As you well know, an increasing number of documents are stored and used online. Important documents like taxes, family photos, legacy documents like wills and medical records, copies of auto and house titles, and small business documentation.
Backing up your computer can become a low priority when you embark on a nomadic lifestyle. GenXers may be busy downsizing, sending children off to college, helping our Boomer parents get their lives digitalized and organized, and planning their own active 50s and 60s. When we had a larger home and a safe, it was enough to back up our computers annually and store the physical backup in a safe. Now that we are nomadic, we don’t want to haul an external drive around. Also we are totally out of our “old life” routine, and can easily miss a backup.
Our solution to making sure our digital content is backed up is to automate this task and pay for storage remotely. In looking for a tool for this, I learned about BackBlaze Personal Backup. I really like that this backup takes place quietly and in the background on the computer. If I’m ever curious about the status of the backup, I can check their easy-to-use dashboard. I also liked that BackBlaze is a smaller business and it’s easy to get hold of someone if you have questions. They have a robust blog that goes into a lot of technical detail on all aspects of data backup. I like this transparency when outsourcing my data backup. When it comes time to access your files, you can access them on your device or on the BackBlaze app.
The monthly cost of BackBlaze in 2022 is $7 per month per device.
To learn more about BackBlaze, check out this video on their mission and facilities:
Fill Out an ICE or Legacy Binder
Like computer backup, filling out an In Case of Emergency (ICE) or Legacy Binder is another thing that is fairly easy to put off.
When we worked with Ampersand Law to complete our will and power of attorney, Heather Hazelwood recommended that we also purchase a sub-$20 binders to document belongings, business details, and wishes.
With an easy to use format, you can fills out important information in the template: a list of financial institutions, business information, what beneficiaries can expect, what type of funeral arrangements are desired, what to do with pets, how to disperse personal property, medical information, and personal wishes including social media and email. While it might be a little sad and anxiety provoking to fill out this book, it will be very helpful to those you leave behind. It’s easier for friends and family to follow an instruction manual you crafted than to have them constantly guessing.
I like that the binder can be discretely placed on a bookshelf or in a storage unit. The binding does not scream “important information here.” And by using a password manager, you can avoid printing sensitive information in this book. You can document your master password here, or leave instructions where to find your password manager master password and computer or phone.
Set Up A Credit Freeze
Unlike many others in the FIRE community, we don’t spend much time on travel-hacking. We don’t open and close credit cards to chase after cost savings. We find that by flying during the week and using one airline credit card, two hotel cards, and one business credit card, we can find enough deals by adopting slow travel, traveling overseas on a weekday, and accumulating points on just a few cards.
There are a number of credit monitoring companies advertised on the news entertainment channels and on radio shows hosted by financial gurus—we don’t use any of those services. The reason that you see these services offered by talking heads is that it is a very lucrative affiliate commission for them.
Avoid any fees for credit monitoring by taking an hour of your time and freezing your credit at the three credit bureaus. One financial guru we do trust is Clark Howard, and he does a great job walking through all the steps to freeze your credit. His free resource to freeze your credit with the credit reporting agencies TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian is very helpful. You can rest assured while you are traveling that no one is opening new lines of credit in your name.
If you do need to unfreeze your credit, you can do so easily using these credit reporting agencies websites. Credit can be unfrozen for days or a month to facilitate any new credit card, auto loan, or mortgage enrollment.
Securing Personal Information—Our Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed learning from us—real nomadic early retirees—about how we secure our personal information while we are on the road.
Depending upon your personal circumstances, you may need additional information on how to secure a niche source of personal information. I highly recommend this book by North Carolina resident Carey Parker, as well as his fun “dungeons and dragons” approach to sharing security tips in his blog and podcast Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons. All his content is for beginner and intermediate level personal security enthusiasts.
Share Your Tips!
Do you have any personal information security tips and tricks from the road less travelled?
Let us know in the comments!
