Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Staying Away from the RV

With the RV gods in the snit that they are presently in, I never went any where near the Motor home today.  I decided to let well enough alone.

Al's comment about the slides not going in and the legs not retracting being the worst fear of the RVer is right on.  And we purposely purchased a coach that does not use hydraulics for any of these functions.  Our jacks are screw style mechanical, and the slides are also gear in slotted track driven just because of the hydraulic issues that seem to crop up.

With that said, some folks have troubles with shear keys in the mechanical models and I don't have any idea where the shear keys are or how to replace them.  Nor do I carry any spares.  Should I look into this?

Today was your ordinary back in town day, with the way too high lawn big on the priority list.  It was to be hot in the afternoon, so I was out there in the AM and was all done before noon.

I also washed on the truck  that sat over in the storage lot and the Camry that went to Des Moines.  They were both filthy.  The truck was splattered by a big muddy dump truck on the way over to the Doctor's office on the day we left.

I rode the motor scooter in the afternoon, but wasn't able to make it all the way up to Ontario and buzz by Sandra's street and make a bunch of noise to bother her.  Well actually this bike is whisper quiet, so I think Sandra would approve.  LOL   Link

I spent the rest of the day looking up bills, and paying them.  Didn't I just do that before we left?  How can there be so many more in five days away?

That is one of the things that bugs me while we are off for the snow bird bit in the winter.  The bills pile up.  Seems like several of the companies have no way to look up how much you owe.  They rely on old fashioned snail mail.

My son brings all the mail into the house while we are gone, but making him go thru it and find the bills would be asking way too much in my opinion.  So I attempt to get online accounts set up for all the bills, where I can just go in and look how much I owe.

I use my brokerage account to pay the bills, as that is one of their many services, and it works quite well.  But what do you do with the water company, or the sewer company that are anchored in 1960, mailing out paper billings?  I call to find out, but even then they act like it is a complete inconvenience to look up the amount.  I realize these are snow bird problems, and full timers don't care about the home water bill.

But for now, I think I have it down to only two bills that have to be called each month when we are away.  And since it is a routine, I call even when we are home too.  That's way easier than looking for that paper bill.

It was hot here today, as we were in the 90s and I saw one marquee that said 33 C.  Now I think summer has really arrived!

Retired Rod

2 comments:

  1. I don't blame you for staying away from the MH for a while.

    I like to have bills paid automatically from my checking account each month, although not all companies will even do auto pay. I check my account online several times a week, so I can catch any error that happens to crop up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I use a free service called mycheckfree.com for most of my bills, but some companies don't have any way to pay them online.
    I got tired of buying stamps and snail mailing them in.
    That urked the daylights out of me until I found that Wells Fargo has a tab called 'Bill Pay', and I can use that for those. I can send money to anyone who has an address and phone #. Just like PayPal can.
    Works for me.

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous comments had to be eliminated.... For the most part this has removed unwanted responses.. If you can't post your comments, please email me and we will make other arrangements...