Does your butter or butter substitute live in (the fridge), or out (counter or table)?
It used to be in the fridge, but damn that makes it nigh upon useless for things like spreading on toast.
So I bought an attractive butter dish. Still butter in the fridge for cooking, but the butter for spreading and eating stays soft in the dish.
I don’t mind leaving butter out, but it’s always kept in the fridge. Around here, real butter is pretty much only used for cooking. Much of what’s cooked doesn’t use butter, so it’s usually used once a week. May as well keep it in the fridge.
On the counter, in one of these.
Butter in use is in a butter dish in a cabinet (otherwise the cat will dump the dish on the floor to get at the butter); otherwise it is stored in the fridge. I usually buy it at the warehouse club, so there may also be backstocked butter in the garage fridge when I am going to do extra baking or cooking.
On the counter, in a regular butter dish, even if a stick is out for months it won’t spoil, I promise.
We keep one stick out for spreading, but the rest in the fridge
Butter lives in the freezer until the butter in the fridge runs out. I used to keep butter out on the counter but it just got too soft so now it stays in the fridge and I soften it as needed for baking.
I really should get a butter dish like Athena has.
I started this to prove to my husband that I’m not a wacko and that we won’t die if the butter dish lives on the counter. I think I’ve just about got him convinced that room temp butter spread on your toast is much better than cold gobs clumped here and there 
And yes, the main stash rotates from freezer to fridge, but the daily use butter is FINALLY allowed to stay out in it’s butter dish.
And all’s right in the world again 
spreadable butter substitute can stay in the fridge forever.
anything from a quarter to a whole stick of butter can be in a covered butter dish for spreadability purposes.
Butter stays in the freezer or fridge except for the stick that is in use. It stays out on the counter.
It gets used rather quickly because I finally convinced everybody that it’s healthier to use a little bit of butter rather than globs of the fake tasteless crap sold in the tubs.
I know it can stay on the counter, but as Johnny said, around here it mostly gets used for cooking and not that often, so it takes forever to use up a stick. If I were hosting a dinner where I expected bread-buttering would happen, I’d leave it out early enough that it was room temperature and ready for people to use.
Cat tongues make the neatest little designs in butter though.
It sleeps in the freezer until it’s needed. The awake stick lives in the fridge unless it’s being softened for spreading/baking.
I know - it’s a description my kid came up with when he was really little.
Fridge temp butter tastes so much better though.
On the counter.
In the winter, when temps in the house are in the 60’s, i use full sticks at a time. I store it the North facing cabinet, the temperature in those cabinets are in the 50’s
In the summer, I usually cut the stick in half (or smaller) and leave it on the counter. House temps are in the mid 70’s.
If there is a recipe that needs softened butter, I put the stick in a bowl and leave it front of LCD TV. Those TVs put out a lot of heat.
The active stick is on the counter, the bullpen stays in the fridge until called up.
The in-use portion is on the counter in a butter dish during the fall, winter & spring and on the counter in a butter bell (the butter dish Athena pointed to) during the summer. I find the butter bell keeps the butter from getting melty in the summer but keeps it too firm the rest of the year. Backup butter is in the freezer.
I had never seen butter always left out on the counter until I met my boyfriend and then I assumed it was because he’s English (or lazy :p). Growing up, my family always kept it in the fridge and I don’t eat it so I only keep it in the refrigerator until it’s time to cook with it. Very interesting.
I’m both English and lazy but leaving my butter out has nothing to do with either.
It gets used quite quickly but even so, in my experience I have never had any butter go bad.