50, and nearly everything we buy is done via a rewards credit card. Things we know we’ll need a few months to pay go on a separate card.
Some bills are paid via the bank’s billpayer service. We write a check to our cleaning lady.
For the most part, everything else comes out of cash. We very rarely use our debit card as such, only maybe once a month.
No idea what you’re talking about with it being a generational thing, 36 is not old and credit cards have been arround for fricking ages, and certainly by the late 80s were normal, at least in anglo countries.
Online obviously is all CC.
At brick-and-mortar merchants:
<$50, mostly cash
$50-$250, mostly debit
>$250, credit card, or check depending on specific circumstance.
Mostly pay off credit cards in full every month.
Could use the CC more, but the ratstards at the issuing companies decided to cut back my credit limits during last year’s Great Shafting of the Customers, which would mean greater CC use would place me at a higher % of the limit and futz up my score, which I value more than loyalty points/miles I never can use anyway.
Recurring monthly payments are handled by direct bank funds transfer, save for some cases such as my phone company where checks are still easier to manage.
This.
Debit card which I run as a credit card.
I try to never use cash and I only have it on rare occasions. There are a few neighborhood bars around here who don’t run credit card tabs. They do have a ‘convenient’ ATM machine with a large surcharge. However, those are refunded by my bank every month, so I don’t mind paying 5 dollars to take out 20 since I’ll get it back.
Interac debit card, though I am trying to use my credit card (paid in full each month) more to get the points. I’ve just been using Interac forever (so it seems!) and it’s the first card I pull out of my wallet most of the time.
I rarely have cash on me, though I do have $10 in my wallet at the moment.
It’s not a generational thing at all. I’m 53. I’ve used a debit card for nearly 10 years, now, even before I ever had a PC. My income is directly deposited to my checking account. I might go to the bank twice a year for some transaction or another, like to have a paper notarized. I use my debit card for nearly all my bills. I usually carry $20 or so with me, mostly for Mickey D’s or something else that will be quickly consumed. I pay for more expensive durables with debit. Since my debit card is connected with my checking account, I suppose it’s all cash in the grander scheme of things, but it’s much more convenient to pull out my debit card than to go to the bank or ATM and actually withdraw cash or write a check. If I’m running low on “throwaway money,” I’ll just request some extra cash back when making my transaction. I still write a check or two a month, since some of my creditors still haven’t joined the 21st century, but for just about everything else it’s either plastic or a secure online transaction.
I use a credit card for virtually everything except the bills that won’t do auto CC charge, almost all of which are online bill pay (our housekeeper and gardener get the only checks we write on a regular basis). The only times I use cash are cabs, valet tips, etc. or when it’s a really small amount and I happen to have close to the right denomination (I never carry change, though – only bills).
I never, ever use my debit card. I did for a long time, but I decided it added some (perhaps insignificant, but nonzero) risk, and didn’t give me any benefit at all. One time, our debit card was part of a mass compromise at a gas station chain. It wasn’t ever used fraudulently, but the bank of course canceled the card immediately and made us get a new one. It made me think – if the card had been used fraudulently, the money would have been coming directly out of my checking account. Even if the bank would cancel/refund the charge, that could be a pretty big inconvenience (what if it made the mortgage payment bounce or something?).
A credit card can, of course, be compromised just as easily as a debit card. And it’s still a headache when it happens (especially if you have a bunch of bills auto-charging to it). But it offers a little bit more buffer. Having a bad guy charge $10k on my credit card is much less painful than having him charge it on my debit card, causing that much of my cash (if I even have that much in the account) to be withdrawn immediately.
We’re very disciplined with our money, so we couldn’t really see any significant benefit to the debit card. We pay the credit card in full every month, so there’s no interest charged. There is the additional step of making the payment, but it takes about 10 seconds. So, for us, it’s a no brainer.
Hmm, I go to the bank more often than that just to deposit checks and cash I receive as gifts! My wife’s family is Chinese, and in that culture large cash gifts are normal. Sometimes my father-in-law gives us a 50 or 100 dollar bill.
Wait, what? You send your HOA a check each month – presumably one containing your printed routing and account number – but don’t want them to have that information to begin with?
For paying bills, debit card or checking account. Online as much as possible; it’s fast and easy and doesn’t require picking up postal stamps or forgetting that the outgoing payments are in the glove box.
Of course, there are still some things, like local taxes and water bills, that do not yet have ways for paying on line. [What are they waiting for?] So we have to send out checks a few times per year. A package of 100 checks lasts forever. 
For purchases, mostly debit card, unless it’s an item that can earn some sort of reward.
Are you sure you can’t pay those online? With the bank I do online bill pay through, I can use bill pay to pay just about anyone. If they don’t have the electronic transfers set up, the bank just sends them a check on my behalf. That’s how I pay our water bill, sewer bill, etc.
I use credit cards because my debit card charges 50¢ per transaction. And that can add up. Of course I can also use my debit card as a credit card (it has a VISA logo).
What banks do you get free debit transactions from? Or is it like maintaining a certain balance amount?
Almost all credit card for purchases. We do not have a debit card, only an ATM card to get cash form our bank’s ATM, which we do infrequently. We pay all bills electronically through either our bank account or credit card. We write very few checks. We pay our CC bill in full every month. Duh.
I don’t understand why people use debit cards. I don’t understand why people are always running to other bank’s ATMs and then complaining about fees. I don’t understand why people who can afford not to carry a balance on their credit cards.