HOUSTON – Stimulus checks are set to hit bank accounts by the end of this week or early next week, but if you are one of 10 million people who will get their check by snail mail, you want to know when it’s coming.

The U.S. Postal Service offers a free service that can help. When you sign up for Informed Delivery, you will be emailed grayscale photos of each letter-sized piece of mail that will be delivered to your mailbox each day. If you get a picture of an IRS envelope, you know it is likely your stimulus check. That is your cue to put a wiggle in it and get to your mailbox to retrieve it right away.

Some consumers who live in an apartment complex or a community with cluster mailboxes say the service is particularly helpful now when we are practicing social distancing. If their Informed Delivery notification shows you only received junk mail, there’s no need to go out and pick it up.

Once you sign up, the USPS says it typically takes about three business days to start receiving those notification emails. Not every address is eligible for Informed Delivery. You can quickly find out if yours is by typing in your address here.