Assuming you have some form of income, whether from a job, a pension, a Publisher’s Clearing House jackpot, a lotto win… regardless of the source, how do you get your money? Poll to follow.
I think the last paper check I got was first payday on a new job before they set me up in their direct deposit system. My money magically appears in the bank as it has for decades.
I did have a surprise bonus check show up in the mail a few months back, but I don’t count that since it wasn’t a paycheck so much as the company showing me some love. 
I’ve been employed full time for almost 33 years now. My pay has always been electronically deposited overnight, presumably by Keebler Elves.
Direct deposit.
I haven’t entered a bank for my own personal banking for years.
Direct deposit.
Used to get paper [del]bonus[/del] “award” checks but starting a couple of years ago those have been DD too.
I signed up for direct deposit when it was new and exciting and the Navy was encouraging everyone to go that route - that would have been some time in the 70s. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop. I honestly don’t understand people who don’t like/trust DD, but I am aware that some people don’t have bank accounts. I find that difficult to grasp since I’ve had a bank account since I was a pre-teen.
I’ve been paid by direct deposit since 2000. The great majority of financial transactions I make are electronic.
I still have checks kicking around, which are useful for paying for my kid’s school trips are such. They have an online payment system, actually, but it sucks.
Usually direct deposit, but sometimes cash in hand when the boss forgets to send the payroll in.
Electronic transfer, here. Hell, almost everything in Sweden is either debit card or electronic transfer now - I think I can count the number of times I’ve been to an ATM in the past year on one hand, and I haven’t set foot inside a bank for probably three years now.
Should add that paper checks are nonexistent here as well. Most of the time, transactions go through immediately, so it’s easy to keep an eye on my bank balance - and God knows my life has been made simpler through eliminating the monthly task of reconciling!
Probably started in the 1980’s (I was slow in adopting it), but never had a problem with it and all my retirement payments, both Government and private are DD’ed (but I still check every payday just to be sure…)
I don’t like direct deposit because I understand how computers work. It has nothing to do with the availability or lack thereof of a bank account.
Back in 1995, Sandra Bullock starred in a very important movie called The Net, that despite its importance has somehow managed to pass out of public consciousness. It was a warning about (1), computers control far more than most people realize, and (2), most people have the attitude that “whatever the computer says must be correct.” You can see that attitude playing out in all the news stories of people who unthinkingly follow GPS instructions into a lake or a field. (Look it up.)
That sort of thing, plus the fact that sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes computers crash, and sometimes even big businesses are too stupid and too lazy to have proper backups, is why I don’t like and don’t trust direct deposit. You see, with things like that, there is NOTHING that exists independently of the digital transaction. Sure, sometimes you can get a print-out, but that is merely a paper copy of the digital record. If something goes wrong, your only hope is to pray that people are smart enough to listen to you, instead of believing the computer. Whereas with an actual check and paystub, you have a physical object that you can point to, if the need arises.
My regular payday has been direct electronic deposit since I started at a regular day job in 2001. If I claim reimbursement for any expenses, those come on a cheque.
Incidentally, I just this week deposited my first paper cheque for selling a science fiction story! The ATMs at my bank don’t like USD cheques, but that gave me an excuse to go brag to the bank teller. 
Direct deposit and I use a debit card for purchases and at the ATM for cash.
I don’t want to think about cash money!
This. So since about 1980 I’ve had about 5 or 6 paper paychecks.
When I was in USAF in about 1983 one of my young shy newbie airmen had a problem. His pay was set up as DD but was simply disappearing, never showing up in his account.
He was such a good follower that he never told his NCO or his OIC = me. He kept just doing without and borrowing a few bucks from his dorm-mates to get by. After about 4 months his dorm-mates got tired of this and ratted him out to the first shirt for not paying what he owed them.
First shirt got ready to ream the kid and discovered instead that he’d never been paid. Not a single penny since his first day in USAF basic training. Turns out he was from a farm 50 miles outside Nowheresville South Dakota and had a checking account at a Mom & Pop local bank in town. A bank so far behind the times it could not accept direct deposits. So DoD had been dutifully sending his pay into space every 2 weeks.
We took him down to the on-base credit union office, helped him open an account, went to base pay and got him a check for his eight months missing wages and hand-carried it to the credit union. We also ensured he paid off all his dorm-mates. Then we kept an eye on his pay and his credit union account statements for the rest of his time with our unit.
Poor kid. He was as nice and as innocent and as don’t-rock-the-boat clueless as only a rural South Dakotan can be. We can help you, but not if you keep it a secret.
Direct deposit, straight to amazon.
We were recently acquired by a bigger company, and our pay schedule changed - now instead of every two weeks, we get paid on the 1st and the 15th of each month. It’s a very interesting way of doing it - it’s a floating payday (weekday-wise), and can fall on weekends/holidays, etc which is annoying, but it lines up much better with bills and budgeting and such.
If this thread were created as recently as a month ago I would have had to say “A paper check” because that’s the only way in which my job paid us.
We have since gotten more streamlined and do direct deposit.
Not on topic but relevant: I am paid monthly and it’s the freakin worst way of being paid ever.
Since all my debts, including or mortgage, are equally electronic, it seems to me I’d be up a couple of bucks if all the computers died tomorrow.
In 30+ years of getting paid electronically, I have never once had an issue.
In 20+ years of electronic banking, I have never once had an issue.
I’ve been a freelancer for 31 years, and haven’t had a regular paycheck since 1986. I got paid after I invoiced my clients, which I did once a month. And I would always get a paper check in the mail, sometimes promptly, sometimes not. I worked for a hospital for a while, and they treated me like a vendor and would take six weeks to pay. There was a period of several years when I had 5-8 clients, and it was a little nerve-wracking not to know until I totaled up the hours (I billed strictly by the hour) what my income for that month would be. When I started, I had to print out and physically mail the invoices. After email became a thing, I could email a PDF of the invoice. Still, they would send me a paper check.
I’m mostly retired now, so I only go through this with my one client. Also I have three “checks” (Social Security, Dept of Defense, and VA) that are electronically deposited. I’m also the mortgage holder on two properties. One of these “checks” is electronically deposited, and the other one is sent by the guy in the mail, or sometimes he physically brings it to my house. I’ve suggested EFT, but he doesn’t get around to doing it.
During one stretch in my first marriage (early 1970s) I got paid every other week and my husband got paid every other week on the in-between weeks. A paycheck EVERY WEEK! That was cool. However, we were still always broke. :rolleyes: