banking when full timing

[capacitor]

I currently have BofA but was wondering what other banks provide the same coverage across the states. We have a few small time banks here but would like a bank with a wider range and one that is sort of solid. Wells Fargo gone Rabo bank gone etc. How do you do it?

[doxiemom11]

We use the credit union we have had for years. Any money coming in is usually an electronic deposit. I go online to their bill pay once per month and pay all bills. I do not have anything auto deducted. There is not charge for me to do it on the day I want. Billing statements are usually available online if you need them. In the even we do get a personal check for a birthday or something, we endorse the back "For Deposit Only" sign and put it in the mail to our credit union. When we upgrade to a smarter phone, we could do it online too. We get money back if needed when we do our grocery shopping. We rarely need to go to an actual building but do visit our credit union a few times in the summer when in that state.

[mikim]

We use Ally Bank. They have a no ATM fee if you use an AllPoint ATM.

No issues and really very happy with Ally Bank.

[2Fliers]

Call Chuck! We used Schwab Bank while full timing. They have great customer service, seamless online banking, and rebates for all ATM fees.

[enblethen]

Our main accounts are at BofA.
My wife has a secondary account that her employer required for her work along with a Chase credit card. She didn't give it up!

[Donna_Jean]

enblethen wrote:
Why not open a second BofA account?
My wife has a Chase account that was opened while she was still working for her expenses. She still has it, but we use our main account.
Get Cash Rewards BofA credit card. It really helps on long trips for the various amounts of kick backs especially on fuel.

I am a little confused is Chase your main bank? That's what we have now, we plan to go full time next year and i was not planning on switching

[CFerguson]

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Well, we were! Once we finished up our coach purchase we left for TX to get it registered and pay the man all the money we had left in taxes!

Oh well. Opportunity Lost.

[Bill_Satellite]

Well, we were! Once we finished up our coach purchase we left for TX to get it registered and pay the man all the money we had left in taxes!

[CFerguson]

Bill.Satellite wrote:
We have been BOA customers for many, many years, even before we started full-timing. We have been full timing (truly moving and living) since 2000 and BOA has only failed us a few times. There are a couple of pockets around the US where a BOA or BOA ATM does not exist. No matter, though. Need cash in a banking desert? Stop by Wal-Mart, make a purchase and get whatever you need as cash back using your debit card. Need to deposit a check and no bank or ATM is available? Use the BOA app to take a picture of the check and it's in your account in a matter of seconds.
I needed a certified check to buy our new (to us) Prevost a couple of weeks ago and there were only 2 BOA's in the Knoxville, TN area. We were about 30 minutes away, drove "to town", got the check and delivered it to the dealer. Done and done!
We transfer funds from investment to banking and banking to investment with the click of a button. Bills are paid using our BOA CC automatically and we pay the CC off monthly. We also get a cash back reward with the card in the $50-$80/month range having done nothing more than pay our bills!
Love BOA!

BILL! Youre near Knoxville right now? I'm close (enough). Lets get together and have lunch.

[Walaby]

mleekamp wrote:
I know I'm an outlier here, both in that we don't "full time" but do spend a month at a time, or bit more, on the road during the year....and the fact we use our credit union.

I'm putting my 2 cents in simply because I feel you shouldn't overlook a local credit union vs. a bank. Fees are nearly non-existent except for ATM outside our network....however, we mostly use the card and, like you all, bill pay online/auto pay.

Bottom line, just my 2 cents, credit unions offer same services for less fees. In my experience.

x2 on the local credit union. I do nearly 100% of my banking online with mu local CU. Never had any issues. Pay all my bills either directly online with the biller, or the CU bill pay app.

I see no reason why I couldn't keep doing that while on the road. In all my vacations, I've never had a reason to have to go into a brick and mortar branch anywhere.

Mike

[Bill_Satellite]

We have been BOA customers for many, many years, even before we started full-timing. We have been full timing (truly moving and living) since 2000 and BOA has only failed us a few times. There are a couple of pockets around the US where a BOA or BOA ATM does not exist. No matter, though. Need cash in a banking desert? Stop by Wal-Mart, make a purchase and get whatever you need as cash back using your debit card. Need to deposit a check and no bank or ATM is available? Use the BOA app to take a picture of the check and it's in your account in a matter of seconds.
I needed a certified check to buy our new (to us) Prevost a couple of weeks ago and there were only 2 BOA's in the Knoxville, TN area. We were about 30 minutes away, drove "to town", got the check and delivered it to the dealer. Done and done!
We transfer funds from investment to banking and banking to investment with the click of a button. Bills are paid using our BOA CC automatically and we pay the CC off monthly. We also get a cash back reward with the card in the $50-$80/month range having done nothing more than pay our bills!
Love BOA!

[way2roll]

Any chartered bank can operate anywhere in the US if not globally - with the exception of a sanctioned country. So in short, any bank will do. The trick is to find one that has interfaces and customer access that is user friendly. Most of the major banks do this pretty well; Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, BOFA, PNC etc. But don't rule out small banks. Diversification across products and linking them to the same customer profile is often a challenge for large banks, but it looks pretty seamless to the consumer, until you have to be transferred to one area for mortgage, one area for cards, one for checking, etc. But once you get it ironed out and set up they all work pretty well. We manage everything on line. I haven't had to step into a branch in over a year. Don't plan on it either. Direct deposits, direct debits for all payments, etc.

[lenr]

Our goal in retirement was to travel 90% of the time although Covid has slowed that down to more of a distancing in the trailer program. Either way we needed to do banking away from home. We set up all of our recurring bills to direct debit a credit union account in which we keep minimal money. To get cash on the road we opened an account with Ally Bank which was recommended by a personal finance magazine. At the time, they advertised many free ATMs and up to $10 per month of refunded bank ATM fees. We found the free ATMs to mostly be in stores with limited amounts of cash available per transaction--It didn't seem effective to me to make a special trip to a free ATM to get a little bit of cash. While using bank ATMs worked at first, soon the Ally card processor started blocking the transactions as potential fraud even though we were using the same ATM repeatedly with no real fraud. That got to be so annoying that we dropped Ally and went back to Chase (who has a strong presence around our land locked house and in the Eastern US) for our cash needs . In the days of Covid we have found that using charge cards frequently has dramatically reduced our cash needs so we hit a bank ATM for a big chunk of cash when we run low. We'll pay a bank fee someday if necessary, but it hasn't been yet. We maintain 5 charge cards in case one gets locked and never (as said above) use a debit card for anything but cash from an ATM because a hacked debit card can lock up your bank cash for several days. Note: your experience with Ally may be different; in our experience Ally just wanted to blame their third party card processor instead of actually fixing the problem.

[JimK-NY]

Our main bank is Chase. When we travel in the Western US there are almost no Chase banks outside of major cities. We also have a Wells Fargo account. The WF account makes it easy to get cash on the road without having a limit or paying a fee.

Most of the time that is no big deal and there is little reason to visit an actual bank while traveling. Over the years there have been several exceptions.

While full time traveling my wife and I had all our credit cards and IDs stolen. We got new cards and cash at a local WF branch and they helped us with the logistics needed to get new driver's licences, etc.

Another time I got a substantial amount of cash to do some bargaining for native American jewelry.

Another time I had credit card issues. One card expired. One card had been in use for several years and became brittle and cracked in two. The third card failed because the issuer had a fraud alert issue and decided the card needed to be inactivated and replaced. Turns out I did not need cash but instead I went to a WF branch and picked up a debit card.

Another time I visited relatives and stayed in a local RV park for a couple of weeks. It was a small, private park that would not take cash or credit cards. I had to pay with a cashiers check. The WF branch across the street made that easy.

[Ro_n_Joe]

We utilize USAA. Don't need a stick and bricks location. Cash checks with a phone app and all ATM fees are reimbursed.