We have a current thread: Order any Checks Lately:
And the consensus is that very few checks are written. So lets take a reverse situation: someone wants to pay or has paid you: a gift from a sibling, you help a neighbor clean out his garage, to split a dinner check, for something you sell on Craigslist or garage sale–how could they pay you?
For me it’s basically cash or checks.
Cash, check, PayPal or Venmo are fine with me.
We loan money to the kids through the Zelle app. It’s got a daily limit though, of about $500. So it sucks when the kid in question calls up needing rent ASAP.
For payments from individuals, cash or check for me. Some entities, like my broker, employer, or the IRS, can transfer money into my checking account electronically.
Are money orders still a thing?
Other than that, we usually use cash. My husband does some work for the neighbors with his big manly tractor, and I sell eggs.
Electronic transfer direct to their bank account: that’s how it’s mostly done here nowadays.
I have joint accounts with three of our kids, so I can transfer money into an account they can access. I have tried to explain to them that it’s not a good idea to wait until your in line at the cashier to text me for “emergency money.” In theory, they could transfer money back to me the same way. I’m not holding my breath.
Is there a fee for Zelle? I’d be interested in learning ways to pay for things, and I don’t have paypal or venmo.
Nope, no fee.
Cash, check, Paypal or Venmo. I think I have access to Zelle if I needed it.
I’m not familiar with the pluses and minuses of the various systems available in the US, but in Canada the obvious answer is the Interac network that virtually all banks and credit unions belong to. The nice thing about it is that it’s seamless; Interac transfers are initiated from your standard online banking application, much like online bill payments, and can be sent to anyone with an email address and a bank account, with no other special setup needed by the recipient. Those regularly receiving payments from any given source can register for automatic deposit, which means that the recipient doesn’t even have to do anything; the money just automagically appears in their account and they get an email notification. And the process usually only takes a few seconds, although in some circumstances there can be a delay of up to about 30 minutes. I really like the convenience.
Yes, I did a couple of money orders last year to get a passport renewed. They also take personal checks, but I couldn’t find any.
This (or cash.)
FYI all, Venmo is a private business a bit like PayPal. Zelle is like Mastercard, something run by an industry-level consortium of banks. That industry level support makes me feel a little bit better about dealing with them.
For me, I accept cash, checks, and Zelle. I have ACH set up between my own various accounts at various institutions, but that doesn’t help for outsiders to pay me. Back when I was trustee for my late aged MIL I did have ACH set up between her primary checking account and mine so I could reimburse her, or she me, when needed.
A couple months ago a friend and I went traveling together for a week. We divided up who would pay for what (e.g. you get hotels & rental car, I’ll get meals and entertainment) to roughly even out the load, then we settled up the net at the end via Zelle. Quick, painless, and nearly foolproof. Can recommend.
You might want to talk to your bank about that. Most of my dozen-ish recipients have limits of $5,000/day. The lowest is $2,000/day. Not that I send them that kind of money routinely, it’s often less than $100 and rarely more than $500.
I checked those limits just a few minutes ago, around 5pm on Monday. It occurs to me that maybe they are dynamic by time of day or day of week. e.g. at 11pm on Friday before a 3-day weekend they might be less to reduce the bank’s and the transferor’s exposure to fraud risk. I’ll have to check next weekend to see.
One of the cool things about zelle is that it’s nearly instant. And not recallable. IOW, the sender hits [send] and within a couple minutes the receiver gets a text from their bank saying the money is in your checking account and is guaranteed by the banking industry, not by the sender.
If I know you well, I’ll take a check. Otherwise, cash talks.
I had a problem with receiving checks for a time when my bank went from initially requiring me to scan or photograph the check – a mere pain – to requiring me to use their app on my phone – an impossibility. Quite handily solved by switching banks; now the checks go into the mail, no muss no fuss.
Paypal would be easier still, but the fee is extremely annoying and pretty much unacceptable for significant amounts.
A whole lot of banks have Zelle integrated. You may already have it, I see it as an option on my Wells Fargo app when I go to pay/transfer. I don’t recall that I ever had to do anything to enrol, I think they sent me a message one day saying “here’s $10, try this”.
This actually came up for me recently. My Dad needed to pay me back for some travel expenses, since I made the booking for all of us and thus it all got charged to my credit card. First he tried to pay me using Zelle since that’s tied to his bank account, but as it turns out I can’t receive Zelle payments because my debit card doesn’t support “instant cash payments” or wherever they call it. He was about to just mail me a check, until I told him he could use PayPal. So he did, and I got my money. Slower than Zelle, but faster than it would have taken a check to arrive in the mail.
Yeah.
You should find Zelle is already integrated into your existing bank’s website or phone app; it’s not something you need to subscribe to separately. Pretty much if you bank in the USA, you have Zelle.
ETA: @WildaBeast snuck in while I was typing. Wow. I can’t see what relevance a debit card has to the ability to zelle into your checking account. Something sounds garbled.
Rarely checks. Cash, Venmo (all the kids use it), Zelle, and Paypal.