Topical thread: Cash, checks, plastic, and online
On the right is a poll put up by the San Francisco FED that I translated to here. I personally use cash and checks to monitor my emotional response to spending, which can become numb using all credit card purchases. Online payments work if not automatic. Then again, I don’t use a lot of checks.
Business accounts (sole proprietorships) I treat differently. Quirky behavior which works for me.
I carry my checkbook, but really up here (central Canada) very few businesses accept cheques the way they used to. Mostly, cheques are requested to provide the account information, when setting up automatic payments.
But boy, do we use debit cards! “Canadians, in fact, rank as the undisputed world leaders in debit card use, making 71.7 debit transactions per person in 2001, which is significantly more than consumers in the next closest country (France, at 60.3).” We have a single network, called Interac.
I use debit and cash almost exclusively, and use credit card or PayPal for online purchases. (Small limits on both, so the risk is negligible.)
I use credit cards because they impose the greatest transaction cost on businesses involved. My main goal in all my expenditures is to make every transaction a loss for the businesseses involved. I view my subsidy of VISA as a necessary evil. It gives me great satisfaction to see economic power concentrated in monopolistic and unproductive sectors of the economy (e.g. VISA).
LOL utopian…I avoid credit card use as for that very reason with local businesses especially. Cash, check, or debit unless impossible at the moment. I plan ahead for my friends to help them earn more money.
Debit almost exclusively. Online payments (never vendor initiated), except for a few things I basically have to pay with checks (medical bills, rent) because the lag time on an online payment –> bank mailed check would be ludicrous.
The poll is terribly leading … the last entry (selection #4 – “I use a combination …”) is going to be the answer for at least 50% of respondants, because it is the closest to reality about how we all use money these days. Selection #2 is a subset of selection #4. The poll is, of course, informal, but the poller already knows what conclusion should be drawn by the wording.
Given that the original ‘poll’ was conducted by a branch of the FED, I am not suprised.
rdan:
Mostly checks as I have to write it into my checkbook. A few on line payments which I also record, and very few minor debit card transactions.
As I am retired I have no debit card, and get cash the old fashioned way at the bank, by writing a check for it. Have credit cards, but pay them off every month. I had a long discussion with the guy at the bank who was pushing a debit card, I told him with a check and a passport I could get money at any branch of the bank. I have shifted from checks to bill pay for most bills because it saves .44 per bill.