Our water finally started accepting online payments so we’re probably under a half dozen a year, for school field trip payments and the odd doctor’s bill without an online payment option.
Checks / cheques are Not A Thing in continental Europe. I don’t miss them.
My wife and I were using checks that had our previous address on them, we moved over 7 years ago. This past June our local auto licensing location would not accept a check that did not have our current address so we got 100 new checks, the maximum our credit union will give us for free. I think we have written 3 since then, it’s the only way our lawn service guy wants to be paid.
Our milkman only takes cheques, and he delivers weekly, so that’s 50 or so each year. Certain payments to CRA (the tax folk) are by cheque as well. That put me over the 50+ in the survey.
I reliably write 3 per month: rent, utilities, and the one credit card that I pay off at the end of the billing cycle. So that’s 36 a year. For sure I don’t need to use checks for that, at this point it’s habit. I don’t have a need to change how I do things so I don’t. And I loathe automatic payments because I dread everything coming due all at once and overdrafting my account - I’d rather pay a nominal late fee if I have to because it’s hella cheaper and less of a headache than sorting out that sort of mess.
I have also cut checks in the last year for some medical expenses/doctor visits as well.
So… 25-50 a year for me. Yeah, I’m an old fashioned sort of gal.
We write six a month for utilities. Been that way forever. Why change. It works fine.
I have never written a cheque or owned a chequebook. It’s probably been 30 years since I’ve had to deposit one.
I still have my original bunch from when i opened my first bank account, I’ve used less than a dozen total after several decades.
I write a check every two weeks to pay our house cleaner. Other than that, I only use checks to pay the occasional one-time bill. Most recently, to the US State Department to renew my passport. They very strictly only accept checks (and money orders).
I deposit checks all the time. We have an elderly blind neighbor that we help out by buying his groceries sometimes; he reimburses us by check. We get money gifts from my mother-in-law at regular occasions — she has never used the internet in her life, so she pays by check.
I guess anybody who never deposits checks doesn’t get payments from elderly people who don’t use computers.
Oh, and one other thing: When starting a new job, the first paycheck is often a live check before direct deposit is established.
I’m sure it’s less than 5 per year. I use checks to pay the woman who petsits my cat when I travel; she’s older than me and still prefers paper checks over newfangled money transfer apps like Venmo. And I also had to write one recently to renew my passport. Maybe occasionally to pay tradespeople like plumbers and such, but it seems like more of them are accepting credit cards now.
I did order checks last year, though, because my credit union upgraded their computer system, which resulted in everyone getting new account numbers, and I wanted checks with my new account number on them. Although in hindsight I don’t think I needed to; I think they would have still honored the old ones.
We write one a month to the yard man, and then write for property tax payments where they charge extra for credit and don’t have direct withdrawal set up.
We just got a new set of checks, but instead of a box (or several boxes 20 years ago( you get five or six checkbook refills in an envelope. Should last at least five years.
Once a year for a fantasy baseball league that is still very old school. We’ve been playing together for over 15 years so I’m not worried about the commissioner running off with the money.
I write them to my HOA because over the past 3-4 years they have changed companies 4-5 times. I’d sign up for online but they gave us the payments in December one year and then in Feb or so changed companies and a new way of online paying. I sometimes use them for paying doctor bills too if I have to sign up for yet another account just for one bill.
Funny you should bring this up; the one business to whom I have written a physical check (as opposed to an “E-check”) in the past five years or so - my dentist - just informed me that he is retiring in a month. If I replace him with someone who takes credit cards to pay my bills, then my answer becomes, “What’s a check?”
Okay, who’s going to start the “Buy any stamps lately?” poll - and if you do, I suggest including an option for, “Only for my Christmas cards”?
We write one a year to each of our 3 kids and 6 grandkids. Then we make donations by cheque to maybe 40 charities. The annual real estate tax bill and water bills are also paid by cheque, so we are on the cusp of 50 a year.
“Cheque” non-user here. We ordered cheques last about 5 years ago since it was the only way to pay our gardener/snow removal guy. He is a very low-tech flip phone user. About 3 years ago his son set him up for Interac direct payments (the standard system for peer-to-peer payments up here) where deposits were automatically deposited into his bank account.
I can’t imagine ever writing a personal cheque again.
Even at work virtually everything is electronic. We still receive 3-4 cheques a month but I don’t send paper cheques out for anything.
So, where are people located that they spell it “cheque”?
I use credit cards for online shopping and in most stores. Otherwise, checks. That is, utilities, personal services like my house cleaner, my pilates instructor, the horse shoer, my hay guy, the orchardist who prunes my apple trees, buying livestock, my church tithe, charities, organization memberships … I write a lot of checks. For craigslist and suchlike, those are cash only, whether buying or selling. Farm stands often only take checks or cash.
Several hundred checks a year, I would guess.
UK and Commonwealth countries.