I have a checking account and a savings account, but am considering getting rid of my checking account. I buy almost everything in cash or with my credit card, and most of my bills can be paid through my banks web site via EFT. For those bills that can’t be paid via EFT I can fill in the name, address and amount on my bank’s web-banking thingie and they’ll mail a check for me, free of charge.
I need to find out if it’s still free of charge if I make the payments directly from my savings account. Considering I haven’t written an actual check in years it’ll probably be worth it.
Once about 20 years ago I was dating an African-American woman and she had me drive her to a part of town where she could get a check cashed. The establishment had a huge red and yellow sign you could see from 10 blocks away, “CHECKS CASHED.” This was the first place of this kind I had seen. I looked around but couldn’t see the name of the business anywhere. When I remarked this to her, she shot back, “N*****s don’t tell you what it is, they just tell you what it does!”
Still pondering the linguistic implications of this.
In Japan, people tend to pay for things in cash, and I’ve seen a few people withdrawing a money-bag full of cash and walking out of the bank, presumably to buy a car!
On the other hand, monthly bills for gas, electric, phone, etc. are usually electronically transferred from a checking account, where one’s salary is electronically deposited. Thanks to this service, I have gotten very used to never physically paying bills. I’ve also lost track of my balance and gotten called by the gas company because they couldn’t get paid from my minused-out account!
I usually pay for one-time things like concert tickets by first ordering by phone, then electronically transferring the ticket charge to the ticket vendor’s bank account. It’s convenient from an ATM, but amazingly, ATM’s are usually open from 8:00 - 6:00 p.m., sometimes later. But not 24 hours a day, so not entirely convenient for busy people.
One more interesting thing–some bills come with a bar code printed on them. You can pay at a bank, or at any convenience store!
You can also pay bills from a cellular phone, something that was previously mentioned.