Summary: How can we manage our responsibilities without burdening other people in our life while we are, from their perspective, outside playing? We look in our “pack” and lighten our load for everyone. Options for paying bills If you don’t bank online yet, please start now! Set-up automatic payments for all your bills that don’t change from month-to-month over a long period, like rent or mortgages. Think of it like you’re automatically pushing the money to the payee. If you have recurring bills due that change from month-to-month and/or you can’t set up “budget billing” for even payments as is most often done for utilities, the payee can pull the money from your account. Sign up with the company and set this up using their process. For occasional bills that pop up while you’re away (credit, medical, pets) either find a personal assistant or continue to bank online with a smartphone or borrowed computer (see section “Begin using LastPass” below). your financial assistant will either check your mailbox or accept all your mail forwarded to them (see section “Forwarding Mail” below). If your assistant will handle the bills for you, Give them a few pre-signed checks in a lock box o transfer money to your assistant’s account for them to pay the bills as needed, keeping the paper bill in a safe place for you to see later. If you want to handle the occasional paper bills with paper checks on the trail, decide whether calling in to your assistant and carrying checks and mailing them is practical for your trip. Pay with a borrowed computer at a library, coffee house, hostel or hotel, etc. and take smart security precautions. Do Not login directly to your bank account from a borrowed computer! Use LastPass to log in. Begin using LastPass Begin using LastPass a couple of months prior to your trip so you can get use to it. It’s easy to sign-up, the encryption is great and it’s recommended by lots of reputable companies. You’ll probably want to install the browser plug-ins to allow for easier use. If you pay bills on your smart phone, you’ll also benefit by using LastPass but you’ll need to sign-up for a premium account. Here’s a link to LastPass on how to create and use one-time passwords. Create a number of these (10-20) passwords and print them out and put in a safe place. Now you can carry them with you to use when you’re on a public computer. To use, simply: Open any browser Go to https://lastpass.com/otp.php Enter your lastpass email and one-time password (see below) Simply click Login and you now have access to all your passwords. Forwarding Mail Go to https://www.usps.com/manage/forward-mail.htm Click on tab as shown in the screen shot below: Click-on “Get Started” button, see below: 4. The first thing you’ll do is select “Temporary” of course, then, be sure you set up plenty of time to complete your hike. It’s easier to cancel the forwarding orders than to renew it. Ensure your mails is being forwarded before you leave by selecting the start date several days before you plan to leave, and check with the person who will be receiving your mail to ensure it’s arriving as planned. In Closing I’m glad you are taking time to make note of the details for merging everyday life with your life-changing hike. In the meantime, remember to hike as much as possible now and enjoy the little things: water in small creek beds after a rain and sunlight on the forest floor.
