Less paper, anyway
I ordered a box of checks yesterday, and in the process of so doing, I thumbed back through the register to see the last time I’d done so.
Summer of ’06.
Which means that I’ve used up a mere 150 checks in 27 months. Used to be, I could go through that in three months.
The only significant recurring bill I pay with an actual check, other than the mortgage and the car payment, is the city utility bill, and that’s because Oklahoma City utility billing isn’t set up to take online payments from my bank: the bank has to cut them a check and mail it to the same place, and I can do it quite a bit faster. (Five days, they say.) Both electric and gas companies used to have the same issue, but now they’re wired: two days max. My check usage has declined commensurately.
And I suspect the check-printing business has declined somewhat itself: the design I ordered throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s was discontinued in 2004, and the replacement design is no longer available in 2008. Maybe they’re trying to tell me something.
McGehee »
19 September 2008 · 9:31 am
Checks will probably be entirely gone within our lifetimes. Cash as we know it, probably not, and I think there will always be a need for something like it. Money developed spontaneously among traders long before it became a public instrument controlled by governments. It was the necessary first step away from pure barter — and barter, like the poor, we shall always have with us.
Whenever I read about the so-called “cashless economy,” I want to ask, “And what about that ‘paperless office?’ How’s that working out for you?”
ms7168 »
19 September 2008 · 9:46 am
Interestingly my bank used to have to mail a check to the City as well but now they take an electronic payment from them.
I ordered a box of checks recently primarily to reflect some corrected information. I expect the box will last me probably 10 years :)
CGHill »
19 September 2008 · 9:46 am
“And what about that ‘paperless office?’ How’s that working out for you?”
I know how it’s working out where I work: were there a cartel called the Organization of Paper Exporting Countries, we’d have been flirting with Chapter 11 for so long the state would assume a common-law relationship.
unimpressed »
19 September 2008 · 4:15 pm
I’ve still got a checking account but haven’t ordered checks in five or six years now. I make do with a check card. On those things that can’t be done online (certain utilities), all of them are within a half mile of the house.
Tat »
19 September 2008 · 8:17 pm
I write checks in 2 cases: as a birthday present to a relative who I know would prefer it to a pair of shoes or a Teleflora bouquet, and for a contribution/donation.
The address printed on my checks is 3 y.o.