We Lost Money When We Didn't Change Banks and Started Full-Time RVing!
When we first started out on the road in 2019, we did all of our banking at a local credit union. With our lifestyle, we came to find out very quickly that didn't work! With travelling the country in our RV, we realized that we didn't have unfettered access to our money. For most transactions, we would have to return to our "home state" and into a branch, to do them.
This became crystal clear when we were in Albuquerque, New Mexico and we were considering refinancing our RV through our credit union. We were told "In order to do that, we would have to see you in person at your local branch". When I explained that we were two thousand plus miles away and wouldn't be back in North Carolina in the foreseeable future, I was told that there was no other way. To be blunt, there was no way I was going to fly to North Carolina, go to my bank branch and fly back to New Mexico! That was when we decided that we needed to change banks. When we arrived in Tucson, AZ, we went to PNC bank and opened our accounts. The process was simple on PNC's side but not so much for North Carolina State Employee's Credit Union! Again, we were told that in order to close the account, we would have to BOTH go to North Carolina and do so in person. Yeah, that wasn't working for us. So, in the only work around we could come up with, we transferred all of our savings into our checking account and wrote a check to PNC for *ALMOST* the entire amount.
We were required to leave $50 in each of our "share" accounts at NCSECU and a small amount in our checking account. So now we have $130 in NCSECU that we very well may never see.
If you're heading out to start your full-time RV life, be sure that your bank accounts are with one of the many larger, national banks that will allow you to go into any branch, nationwide, and perform transactions seamlessly.
Hoping YOU experience "Less Worry & More Wonder"
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