Jan 2019, I plan on cruising and living up and down
the FL panhandle and cruising the FL west coast for 8 weeks.
How do you get cash ?
Set up with an established FL bank and set up a ATM.
Just keep my local bank in Iowa and get a debit card
or just bring a lot of cash to last 8 weeks?
Or just go credit card most of the way?
Thanks
We use credit cards for everything possible, even small purchases. It's the only way I know to really manage and budget as otherwise "miscellaneous" becomes a large area of expense. I would always have at least two Visa and/or Mastercard credit cards. Discover and American Express are not accepted everywhere.
You're not leaving the planet. Every area you're in will have ATM's. I'd get a Debit Card, carry a basic level of cash, and then replenish if you need to. Our main use of cash is tips.
A couple of protective pieces of advice.
1. Use debit cards only for ATM's. Do not use them in other places. If they get compromised, you haven't simply gotten a charge that you can easily dispute but you've had money taken from your checking account. Debit cards carry significantly greater risk than credit cards.
2. Keep minimum amounts in your checking accounts. Transfer money from savings or other as needed. Minimize your risk.
3. Do no sign up for overdraft protection. If compromised, that simply increases your exposure so suddenly not just your checking account is wiped out but savings hit too.
4. Set up extensive alerts on all your bank accounts and credit cards. The banks do a pretty good job of being on top of potential fraud but you can do even more. Get text messages sent to you on anything in your alerts. Now, don't set the alerts high so that you don't get messages. Set them low and get lots of messages and then you can determine it's all legitimate. For instance, we very seldom write checks of any amount so have any check over $100 alerting. We don't use the debit card except at ATM's so have alert on any charge to the debit card. Have alerts of ATM withdrawals over $300 although we often make more, just as a safety precaution.
5. Go online and check your accounts regularly. Daily is ideal but we don't do it that frequently. At least once a week though. I've caught things I otherwise would not have. Once was an $80 charge (so below alerts) to someone I'd never heard of. I called the number and no answer and googled and clearly not someone I dealt with. Charge disputed, card cancelled, new card arrived FEDEX the following morning. Also, the $0.01 or $1 authorization attempts. While occasionally legitimate, they're most often fishing expeditions by fraudsters to see if the card information will work before making large charges. I had one of those about a year ago, cancelled card, new one the following morning.
6. Limit any automatic charges to your cards to the bare minimum. I know to protect yourself against insurance cancellations they are useful. However, when you're dealing with others and varying monthly charges, the chance of errors over time is significant. People have suddenly had $10,000 electric bill charges. I knew someone with their card on file at a pharmacy and they picked up prescriptions. The pharmacy had failed to run their insurance and charged them $750.
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