Bills, Bills, Bills

[nuknees]

How do thru hikers handle paying bills while you are on the trail?
I'm a single guy so I've got no one at home to take care of these things while I'm away.
What have other single people done?

[sympathetic joy]

What bills?

I'm not on the trail but I have 'paid' a bill in years. Its all automatic. I use my credit card and at the end of the month they automatically deduct it from my bank account. Same with all my stuff.

[Deacon]

There are two general ways you can automatically pay your bills. One is to give your creditor your routing number and checking account number, and authorize them to withdraw the amount due for that month. This works well if the amount due is different each month, such as an electric or gas bill.
The other way is to logon to your bank's on-line checking and set up a monthly payment, where your bank will send a check every month to any creditor. This method works well when the balance due is the same from month to month, and paying small businesses. This is also the easiest to manage from the trail, by using your smartphone.

[Spirit Walker]

We also have almost everything as either an automatic payment or the charge goes to the credit card. A few bills we were expecting midway (car insurance and tax for the house) so we called when they were due to get the amounts.

The only unexpected bills that have come up while we were on the trail or road were a couple of medical charges that didn't get billed before we left.

If you have a friend or family member who will be taking care of your mail, ask them to keep an eye out for unexpected bills. You can leave a few signed but blank checks with them, if you really trust them or just ask them to let you know the amount.

[Old Hiker]

I pay the amount owed every month plus 50% to get an overage, especially on my utility bills. My wife won't have to pay anything while I'm hiking.

No car payment. Downgraded the cell phone. Wife takes care of the house payment.

Everything else is on automatic draft: life insurance, etc.

[hikeandbike5]

don't have any other than a cell phone- which i preload with a bunch of money ahead of time. (prepaid plan)

[CarlZ993]

I had all the bills set on auto-pay. Most bills went straight to my Visa & it was set to auto-pay from my checking account. I transferred a set amount of money (savings to checking) each month to cover expenses. I also added a cushion at the beginning of the hike should something unusual happen along the way.

[Traveler]

How do thru hikers handle paying bills while you are on the trail?
I'm a single guy so I've got no one at home to take care of these things while I'm away.
What have other single people done?

Good suggestions here about using a credit/debit card to pay bills. Call your card provider and find out how to do that. If, however, there are bills that cannot be paid in this manner, a small independent bookkeeper can be hired to receive your mail and grab your bills or pay bills from an on-line source. Plan to spend about $50 to $100 a month for this service, depending where you live.

[garlic08]

I first started long hikes before autopay was widely available, and I had to lean on a trusted friend to open my mail and write checks. If that's an option for you, it works, but as everyone else has said it's not necessary anymore. And it's even easy to check my accounts online every time I get to town, to make sure everything is working smoothly.

Best of all is to simplify your life and get rid of the bills, of course. I do that as much as I can, and I envy those who can do more of it. One of my hiking buddies lives in a friend's cottage and only pays rent when he's there, and has absolutely no other bills. Prepaid phone, no utilities, insurance paid from a pension plan. And he actually saves money when he's hiking--I want to be him when I grow up.

[jawnzee]

Best of all is to simplify your life and get rid of the bills, of course.

this. no need to pay to live in a place you aren't living in. plenty of other people who would do that.

[Rain Man]

Why has no one mentioned paying via smartphone bill-pay app? All banks offer online bill payment and funds transfers. If you can pay bills from home, you can pay bills from the trail.

[LuckyMan]

First get rid of nonessentials such as cable TV or satellite TV. Then use automatic bill payment for utilities etc.

[Traveler]

Why has no one mentioned paying via smartphone bill-pay app? All banks offer online bill payment and funds transfers. If you can pay bills from home, you can pay bills from the trail.

Being a card carrying Luddite, I missed that one completely, sheesh.

[Walkintom]

We paid everything online via smartphones in 2013.

[CarlZ993]

Why has no one mentioned paying via smartphone bill-pay app? All banks offer online bill payment and funds transfers. If you can pay bills from home, you can pay bills from the trail.

I considered this. I was afraid that the lack of coverage (3G for me) would possibly cause a SNAFU. I did use my smartphone to occasionally double-check my Visa bill & look for unusual charges, though.