With only 33,000 miles on it, our 2002 Winnebago diesel pusher is like new in many ways. The previous owner kept in inside a heated barn most of the time, and only used it for vacations and short trips with the grandkids. Miss Terry and the other ladies who have seen it all agreed that the stove had probably never been used, for example.

But the motorhome did have one noticeable flaw; one of the decorative stripes was chipped up in several places for some reason. So yesterday Michele Henry, from Phoenix Commercial Paint, spent several hours with a heat gun removing the old stripe, and this morning we are taking the Winnebago to her shop, where she will repaint the stripe in the original color.

We’d love to have one of Michele’s custom full body paint jobs, but there is just no room in the budget for it right now. Still, she can work wonders, and while the motorhome looked nice before, we know it will be even more attractive after Michele gets the new stripe on.

She will need to keep the motorhome overnight, so we are going to be back in the bus for one more night. I told Terry it’s sort of like having a weekend getaway place until we sell the bus.

Several fulltimers who have been RV shopping have written to tell me that they have been having trouble getting bank financing, and asking me who financed our rig. Over the years, I have had several fulltimers tell me they have experienced problems getting financing, even though they had very good credit.

We worked with Eileen Gilmore, an assistant branch manager with Alliant Credit Union in Chicago. We joined Alliant after meeting Eileen at Escapade in May, and she worked with us to get things set up to be sure we qualified. She has done everything she said she would do, and we are very pleased with our experience working with her. If you are shopping for a new or late model RV, I suggest you give Eileen a call at (773) 462-9642 or e-mail her at egilmore@alliantcreditunion.com, and tell her I sent you.

At the same time we joined Alliant, we also joined Community Resource Credit Union, which is based in Texas, and also had a booth at Escapade. One of the reasons we joined Community Resource is that they are part of the Shared Network, which in theory gave us the convenience of access to hundreds of affiliated credit union branches all over the country who also belong to the network. We were told that we could go into any Shared Network credit union anywhere in the country and it would be just like if we were at one of Community Resource’s own branches.

Well, not exactly, as it turns out. We made a couple of small deposits at Shared branches here in Indiana, and it took anywhere from two to three weeks minimum for them to be credited to our account. I could mail a deposit to our regular bank and have it credited before that!

As if that were not frustrating enough, when we took in cash to get a cashier’s check when purchasing our motorhome, we had to jump through all kinds of hoops and get a manager’s approval.

I called Community Resource to complain, and was told that while we could use any of the Shared affiliate credit unions, we had to wait for them to forward the deposits to Texas, which could take at least two weeks. Or, to speed things up, we could take photocopies of the checks we were depositing, as well as the deposit receipt from the Shared branch, and fax them to Community Resource in Texas. Yeah, that sure sounds convenient!

I had a better idea. I just closed the account.  

But before I close this blog post, Bad Nick wanted me to tell you that he has a new post in the Bad Nick Blog titled Yes, Racism Plays A Role. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – One nice thing about egotists; they don’t talk about other people.

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I’ve received a couple of requests from blog readers to share some information about banking while traveling around the country in an RV. Hopefully I can offer some useful insight into the topic.

In my seminars for new RVers, I always suggest that while they may have a good relationship with their hometown bank, if it does not have nationwide branches, it may not be able to serve their needs as fulltime RVers. I have always suggested getting an account with one of the big nationwide banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America, which have branches in many different states.

For Terry and myself, operating a business on the road, getting access to our money is never a problem – there are ATM machines in every grocery and discount store in America, and we can get cash back at Wal-Mart, most grocery stores, and even at the post office. Our problem is sometimes getting money into the bank! If we are not in a location where our bank has a branch office, sometimes we have to mail in a deposit, which can be problematic.

Things have gotten easier over the years as technology has improved, but I remember once years ago when we had a successful vending experience at an RV rally and mailed a batch of checks to our bank in Arizona for deposit. The bank officer we worked with was on vacation, so the Priority Mail envelope with our deposit sat unopened on her desk for two weeks until she returned. We actually mailed the deposit from Biloxi, Mississippi and traveled all the way to Phoenix before the deposit was entered into our account! These days our bank has a central mail deposit address we can use, which has simplified things greatly.

A great option for RVers is to join a credit union which belongs to the nationwide Shared Network. This is a network of independent credit unions that work together to serve customers who belong to any member credit union. So if your home credit union is in San Diego, California, for example, you can still transact business at a Shared Network member credit union in Elkhart, Indiana, just as if you were at your own branch back home. With over 3,000 locations nationwide in the Shared Network program, it’s pretty easy to find a member branch anywhere you are traveling.

Membership requirements for credit unions have eased over the years, and it’s not hard to qualify. In fact, if you are a member of the Escapees RV Club, you qualify to join the Community Resource Credit Union in Texas, and can join online. Another benefit of credit union membership is that they are often easier to work with than traditional banks, and because they are there to serve their members, not make a profit, their auto and RV loan rates are usually lower.

These days, with direct deposit, online bill paying, and online banking options to check your balances and transfer money around, and other new technology, many people find that they seldom actually have to go into a bank to transact their financial business. For RVers, that makes like much easier.  

Thought For The Day – We could learn a lot from crayons: Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and they’re all different colors…. But they all have to learn to live in the same box.

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