Zack Hill by John Deering and John Newcombe for December 31, 2023

Time marches forward, but habits cling to a different time.

Something that’s still, apparently, predominant in the United States. When everyone else stopped using them fifteen or so years back…

What’s a check? Something next to a Balance…

Meh. My twenty-something children have checking accounts and know how to write checks. They don’t use them often, but they know the value of having a variety of ways to pay.

I only use them at the local fuel oil and gasoline distributor as they give a 10¢ per gallon discount for not using plastic. They can then avoid the processing charges.

There are those who don’t have a website, like some health insurance that require a check.

Since I have paid off the credit cards, & now owing no one any debt that carries an interest-bearing fee, I only use checks and the postal service to pay bills. If a company won’t take a check, I don’t do business with them.

HIPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

The supermarket I go to still accepts checks.

Checks (cheques) and back to a time when folk were a bit more aware of the value of money.. When you had to think about the payment. Plastic just makes it all too easy.

I own some property in the backwoods Pennsylvania township where I grew up. They have no method for taking a plastic or online payment, so twice a year I have to crack open the ol’ checkbook to pay the township and school district taxes.

You cannot believe the dirty looks you get just trying to unload a handful of change at a checkout counter. :)

YES, I still write (in cursive) a check a month (once in a great while 2 checks) ….. rest of my bills I pay online ….. :)

Checks are an identity thief’s gold mine: name, address, bank account #, signature, driver’s license #, DOB (if they ask to see an ID).

Up until recently there was one party to whom I regularly wrote a check — but even they recently began accepting payment by Venmo. For everything else, I download the bills and pay online. In a store, it’s almost always debit or credit card. So I have virtually no use for checks anymore (very little use for cash as well). But I keep a check in my wallet, in case the computers at the store go down. And I imagine that if I ever move again, I’ll order a small batch of checks, just so I have some with my current address.

But I still do the traditional record keeping. Over 10 years ago I traded in my paper checkbook register for an Excel spreadsheet, and I enter all my transactions on it just as I used to do on paper. And I balance my monthly statement just like in the old days, but I also download that statement from my bank’s website. Saves the clutter of having too much paper around.

This reminds me of a strip from Morrie Brickman’s The Small Society (1960s and 70s; if you don’t know it, it’s worth a google). One of the characters is on line at the bank, and the teller says, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to make out a new check — it’s 1978, not 1977.” In the second panel, everyone on line behind him has turned around to line up at the desk so they can correct the same mistake.

This 21st century version is right on target!

Happy New Year!