Well, we been on the road for about two weeks.  We have left the Texas area and have traveled through Oklahoma to Missouri to take our driving lessons in Branson. Things are going ok so far, but I have a question about banking.  Our bank in CA is Wells Fargo and we use a credit union.  As we have headed into Oklahoma and Missouri we are having trouble finding a Wells Fargo Bank.  What do you do for banking?  We can withdraw from ATM's but how can we deposit from the credit union to Wells Fargo?  Is there a bank that is in more states?  In Missouri there seems to be a lot of local banks.

I'm sure others will chime in. We're Canadian so can't answer your questions directly, but we have a similar problem as we go to the USA for 6 months at a time. We take minimal cash with us and use credit cards and checks for 99% of our needs. In 3 years it has worked well for us. If need be we use a debit card at Walmart and get cash back.

We do all of our banking by computer.  Our checks are all direct deposited, and we take cash when we do our grocery shopping.  Mostly use credit cards, then pay them off at the beginning of the next month.  We do bill pay online and if we do happen to get a check, we fill out a deposit slip and mail it to our bank.  It usually posts within 3 days.  We have been very fortunate ....have had no problems. 
Good luck.... 

We also do everything online, including bill paying and credit cards. We get cash by using debit cards and getting cash back from grocery stores. You should talk to your banks as to how you can transfer between them electronically.

We use Bank of America because they have branches back east and out here in AZ.  I thought Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia;  there are a ton of those back east too.  We do all of our banking online so having the branches accessible isn't that big a deal. 
I never closed my bank accounts back east (BB&T & Carolina 1st) cause you never know when a bank will go belly up anymore.

The Links below will help you find locations in your area.

http://locators.bankofamerica.com/locator/locator/LocatorAction.do

https://www.wellsfargo.com/locator/

-- Edited by azrving on Wednesday 21st of July 2010 11:12:25 AM

We still have our bank accounts in NJ. SS and Pension checks direct deposited. As others have said we get cash when using our debit card at WalMart, etc. All credit card statements and other bills such as cell phone are sent online and paid online. In fact, since we get "points" we apply to various gift cards for restaurants, etc we pay almost everything with a credit card. Then at least once a week I gather all receipts and pay that amount online in order to never get an interest charge. My supplemental health insurance is automatic debited from our account as is the house insurance on our rental property. We pay our vehicle insurances on an annual basis so don't have to think about them for a year. Should something come up (for instance rebates or the occasional dividend) that needs to be deposited or paid, we have my daughter on our account to that purpose. We have a savings account with the same bank making it easy to transfer funds online. We recently met with our financial planner in NJ and set up a system where we can call him and he can have funds deposited from our investments into our bank account should that be necessary. As we have moved along, we have found easy solutions to every challenge.

We have debit/credit card from a bank account in Sioux Falls SD that we use most of the time. We also have an account and a credit card with Bank of America that we use occasionally.

I strongly recommend that you have 2 accounts with 2 different banks because one time a few years ago, we received a call from our bank in Sioux Falls telling us that our account, (along with many, many others) had been "compromised" and that we could no longer use that card, and that they were sending us a new one.

We were traveling at the time and needed to purchase fuel. If we had only had the one card, we might have had problems, but since we had the second card, we just used it instead.  

We've found Bank of America banks almost everywhere we've been in the U.S.

Jim

If you want to transfer money from your credit union to your other account on a regular basis, you can most likely set up an automatic transfer to do that. You would talk to someone at Wells Fargo to set that up. You may also be able to do an electronic transfer through your online banking account at your credit union, so you could check out that possibility as well. Also, for a "low-tech" option, with most banks you can mail in deposits, so you could always mail in a check from your credit union account to Wells Fargo.

Online banking is the way to go. Have all checks auto deposit. Any bills setup to pay online. And transfer funds from account to account. It's safe, we've been doing it for about 10 years, with no problems.

I agree with everything already mentioned. 

One thing that might be helpful to you is that Wachovia Bank is now owned by Wells Fargo.  You should be able to find a Wachovia or Wells Fargo bank in just about any town now. 

So, if you need a bank or an ATM then look for Wachovia as they are the same as Wells Fargo now.  I noticed that our Wachovia bank here in Florida has recently put in a new state of the art Well Fargo ATM.  You can deposit checks into it without an envelope and it gives you back a receipt with a picture of the check you deposited.

Like many others, we use online banking as much as possible.  Sure saves on stamps!

One other avenue you might explore. As it happens, I use State Farm for insurance, annuities, IRAs etc. My agent is also a State Farm Banker. The SF Bank is strictly an on line service. The agent will provide you with FedEx overnight envelopes and prepaid waybills for paper deposits. Gubmit happily direct deposits to them. BTW, they will refund 5 ATM fees per month. If your balance is enough, they have no limit on ATM fees. I have no business affiliation other than as a client.

We have recently gone back to USAA and am loving it.  They  have a program that allows you to put any and all accounts on your onsite banking with them (from ANY bank or CU) so that you can transfer between accounts at different banks.  They also have the capacity to allow you to set up your scanner/printer so that you can scan checks directly into your account.
We have kept our account at the credit union because of knowing all the people there and use this debit card for our everyday living.  We use our credit card only in emergencies.  But either bank, we do everything online.



-- Edited by DorisandDave on Wednesday 21st of July 2010 08:20:10 PM

We use on-line banking as much as possible.  We strongly agree with having two credit card accounts and two banks,  as we have had to stop using our primary card for several reasons, several times over our 10 years of full-timing.  We use one card for all the direct payments and automatic charges and the other for our day-to-day expenses (we charge almost 100% of our purchases) and pay them both in full each month.  We have NO ATM or debit cards and use checks very infrequently.  We plan ahead for cash and use branches of our bank (Chase and PNC) when we are nearby.

Mary

Thanks for all the information. We contacted our credit union and they walked us through transferring money on line from them to Wells Fargo. It is easy. It is just knowing about it. We are working on getting all deposits directly deposited and paying everything on line. The learning curve on full timing is straight up.

This is just THE BEST forum for gathering information.  Thank you all so much for this thread