Newb thinking of first long trip. How to pay bills?

[bruceb]

How do you take care of paying monthly bills (visa) etc while on a long trip?

[Mtn Charlie]

In this modern age ALL bills can be paid online either thru your own bank or the creditors website. All you need is a checking account or debit card. Keep track of the due dates of your bills and be sure to pay them on time.

[Lv2Roam2]

You should also consider prepaying an estimated amount for the duration of the trip - or calling the company before the due date and paying over the phone with a credit card. We've arranged automatic debits on many items - and on-line billing for the remainder (in which case we specify the amount to be payed on-line).

[be happy]

To pay my bills both when on the road or at home, I have my accounts set up at my bank to pay each creditor a set amount. Credit cards you should know the monthly amount just pay alittle more to cover yourself. As for the bills that the changes monthly i.e. utilities call the company and set up an average billing amount.

Its really easy to set this stuff up through your bank. I rather like the bank to send payment rather than have my creditor get into my account and pull the money out. I feel by me and the bank doing it I have a little more control over the whole thing.

Good Luck safe travels

[202235f]

We pay 100% of our bills online. We control when and how much to pay. Couldn't be any easier. Never had any problem.

[sundog964]

Your bank will likely have an online bill pay option. This is what I use for 95% of our bills. The other 2 are providers for the pool and lawn care. They prefer checks, so I give them in person. If I'm going to be gone, I'll pay for 2 months.

[Marine359]

The only caution I would offer is to ensure you have a reliable and secure way to use the internet. On a couple of long trips, we used up our monthly phone plan data allotment, which we thought would continue to work even if we exceeded our data limit. We found out that when we went past 30gb data service was throttled so severely that we couldn’t even open a web page. We’ve since upgraded to a better data plan, but it’s way more expensive.

Do not be tempted to conduct any financial transactions on public networks (like campgrounds and Starbucks) unless maybe you use a VPN. There are tons of lurkers out there that use bots to intercept an open url. When you enter a password, you’re toast. A couple of years ago, our Discover Card account was stolen. We Traced it to using a guest internet connection in a Marriott hotel. It took us several months and countless sleepless nights working to get it un-screwed. The thieves had gone into our account, changed the billing address and password, then attempted to run up thousands of dollars of charges. At times, before beefing up our data plan, we had to call banks and billers rather than use an unsecured network.