How many had gone cashless and paper checks free?

I have cheques because I need them for workers, like cleaning ladies, cat-sitters, and service people (roofers, etc). I pay everything online, and use debit a lot. But I need cash for things like coffee (why make them pay the debit/credit card fee for a $2.50 coffee?), books bought at the library, flea markets, etc. I still get advertising/propaganda material from credit card companies and banks even though my statements are online - that REALLY bugs me.

I do not pay any fees for using my cards and so I do pay for a 2 dollar cup of coffee with a credit card.

The only time of late that I do not use a card no matter how small the amount is when a gas station offer cheaper fuel for cash.

Oh sorry I see you are nicer by far then I am as I do not worry if Burger King or whatever need to pay a credit card surcharge on a small charge and if they wish to they could decline using cards for small amounts.

We also havecontractors doing work for us each week and we pay by check (Never a cheque).

I feel kinda sheepish to get a cup of coffee with a credit card. How many places do this? We must travel in different circles.

Ill alwaysw [pay a restaurant tab with a credit card.

I have to have cash on me (we have many small stores in farm country that dont have a swipey). BUT we do have many ATMs, even the Amish market has an ATM outside.

Our banks are all pushing for paperless and cashless. **** EM, I can always move my money elsewhere if its inconvenient to them.
Today I bought 16 haybales at the neighbors farm. They aere 3 buck a bale and (me being the big spender) I gave the kid 6 bucks to load em and tie em down on my truck.)
ALL CASH.

We use Farmall revolving credit for many large purchases and we get a combined statement each month and Mrs F pays on-line.(I wont do that yet).

I use my debit card for almost everything. That way I have a record of what I spent and where and I think it helps me to spend less than I would if I were walking around with a pocket full of cash.

For instance, if I go to a machine and get twenty pounds, I might spend it on a diet coke here or a candy bar there or a pack of potato chips and just nickle and dime it away (and eat a lot of junk - which I do have a penchant for) whereas if I know that I only have my debit card on me, I'll think to myself, 'I'm not gonna use my card to buy a soda and a candy bar - forget it.'

So for me, it's a sort of combined healthy diet /savings plan. I don't really do impulse buys in any other area of my life. I have all the furniture and housewares I need and now that I have youtube - I don't even buy that much music anymore. The one thing I do still find myself buying on impulse is flowers and plants - along with the candy bars and sodas.

I pay all my bills through direct debit or standing order - so no checks there. I wrote the first check I wrote in a year yesterday when I had to send my sister in the US a check for my part of the deposit on the beach house we're renting and she had paid for me.
So yeah, I'd say I've gone cashless and paper checks free for the most part.
I'm moving tomorrow and I'll pay the guys with cash I get from the machine.

Farmerman all the major fast foods places will take credit cards for any amount of charge and I do not see how pulling out as card to pay for a cup of coffee is not as desirable as pulling out a few dollars bills and ending up with a few pounds of small coins in your pocket at the end of a week.

Debt cards being a direct path to your funds frighten me as first of all you do not have the same level of legal protection from fraud as with credit cards and even if the bank make good for your losses sooner or later seeing thirty thousands or so disappearing from my checking account would be bad for my heart. Oh and they do not give cash back credit or airlines millage rewards that I am aware of.

You can also not get just an ATM cards from most banks any longer it must be a full debt/ATM card so I go without same.

Yes I do keep some money in my wallet and hide some more in my car for times when it is needed to pay someone with cash but that is getting more and more uncommon. Then there is the cash funds I keep in my safe at home in case my area get hit by a hurricane and all the electronic charge systems along with the electric is down.

Now why you would you prefer to write checks and pay postage on your monthly bills is beyond me.

In fact most money is going to be transfer over the internet anyway as most large companies are no longer shipping your paper checks to the bank but converting them to digital form and sending that to the banks.

All you done by writing a paper checks is to delay the process by one stage.

The only check I wrote was for my property taxes. I use online bill pay for everything and never carry cash, use my debit card for everything.

We pay the mortgage with a check, mainly so that I can be sure they'll allocate any extra $$ paid to the principle, rather than interest. And I also give monetary gifts via check, even if I'm just handing them to someone in a card at a party. But we do get cash -- not every cab here takes credit cards (although more and more do every day), and small purchases, like RP's occasional workaday breakfasts out, are usually more quickly paid with cash.

Also -- even though we have a transponder, I keep change in the car. We still need it for most parking meters and, sometimes, the line for using the transponder (Fast Lane) on the Pike is longer than the one for exact change.

In our city, there is a $9.00 fee to pay your property taxes online or at the registry office and NO FEE if you pay by cheque. Also, currently there is no way to pay a parking ticket online, so that must be done by cheque. I email money to my kids, but will send a cheque to other family for gifts, with a card.

One way isn't better than the other, Bill... if FM and I want to pay cash for our coffees instead of using a credit card, why shouldn't we? I would feel weird paying for such a small item with a credit card. It also takes longer and it annoys me when there is a long lineup and people are using cards for coffee.

I don't pay a fee for my debit card usages but that's only because I keep a certain balance; if I didn't, I'd get so many free usages, then I'd be paying .50 a transaction. Rip off!

It would seem that Florida is a little ahead of your state as most local governments allow you to pay online by way of computer transfer of funds from your banks accounts with no extra charges.

I would love to do a stop watch on credit card payments compare to handing a clerk a few dollars and having him made change as I do not think off hand there would be any real time difference between the two.

Now I had already written why I do not like debit cards and any fees would be on top of that.

Credit cards used is free, often you have cash back or airline mileages rewards and you get thirty days of float on top of that or so.

I been kicking myself for over two years now as I purchase a car for 12 thousands and pay by check instead of placing it on my credit card that give me airline miles.

My wife stated why did you not placed it on your card and it just never occur to me to do so but the next car or such are going on the credit card.

Lemme give you an idea of how many places do this. McDonalds What else you want to know?

I eat breakfasses at Mickies every so often and I never noticed that they did credit cards "for a Hamburger' ( or a sausage mcmuffin w/ cheese).

Ill have to look next time Im on the road. I was gonna go down to Chatanooga this week but because of the heat, Im way behind on garden work.

I use my bank online bill pay for all regular bills, and use my credit card (pay the "daily use" one off in full every month) for everything else.

Alm0st the only time I use cash is when I'm tipping, so the person won't have to claim it as income (or at least most of it)

I get points for using my credit card, and get a few hundred dollars worth of pre-paid, or gifts cards a year because of that.

I do not even have a debit card, I would gain no benefit from it.
I write proably about 3 or 4 checks a year.

It's pretty much a no brainer to use the payment method that give you the most benefits.

I find it much faster when customers are using credit cards, no change counting, fumbling with bills, etc.

As far as people who still write checks at a cash register, I think their heads should be ripped off at their shoulders and dropped kicked into the parking lot.
Yeah, we'd see how long that check writing idiocy lasted once that policy was put into effect.

Unless, and I've said this before, the person doing it is over let's say 75 years old. Then they can do whatever the **** they want, and anyone who complains should be thrown off a cliff.

You never noticed that mcdonalds takes credit cards?

holy smokes.

Micky's also selling the large fountain drinks for $1.00. That has to be a money loser. I suspect this stuff is decreed by corporate, and the franchisees can just deal with it.

You might not pay a fee when you use your credit card for small amounts but the shop definitely does and (here at least) small businesses will be paying a significantly higher rate than the large chains. I appreciate when people pay cash in my business so I always try and use cash for other small businesses or direct deposit online if I'm not paying face to face.

I am always willing to used cash if the business owner would care to share his savings with me by giving me a discount for doing so.

An already cheap gas station does this in my area and I pay cash with them.

As far as the business owner saving money by not having a credit card fee there is a costs in handling cash and security concerns.

I listened to a radio thing about this kind of thing awhile back...

Burger King offering $1 whopper juniors. Yeah, they lost a couple pennies on each sandwich.

They're not losing money on a $1 fountain drink though.

This is a cut and paste from some forum asking just this question, how much does a coke cost mcdonalds...

I was a restaurant manager for a while (yeah, it sucked). The 5 gallon boxes of syrup cost 40 or so dollars each. At 5-1 mix ratio, we got 30 gallons of mixed soda from each. If my math is correct, that’s 3840 ounces of mixed drink. Each 22 ounce glass held about 13 ounces of soda (fill it with ice of course.)This results in somewhere around 300 glasses of soda per 40 dollar box. That works out to about 13 cents a glass, not including CO2 costs, which were minimal.

We charged each person 2.29 a soda.

This was was June 09, so exactly 2 years ago. Considering mcdonalds large soda is 32 oz, not the 22 oz mentioned above, that would have brought the 6/09 cost up to 19 cents for the actual soda. Of course there's the cup let's go crazy and say 10 cents in 2009, adding on a ridiculous 50% increase from 2009 to 2011, the total cost would still only be 44 cents.

If it's ice tea they are selling, the cost would be way less than that.

There's no additional labor cost. They don't have to hire an extra person to sell the $1 drinks.

If I had a retail business that accepted credit cards, I would make several forecasts for my profits in any given year. One of these would be the not likely scenerio that ever single customer was going to pay me with a credit card.

I do have agree that taking credit cards is a cost of doing business. There's a liquor chain here that gives you a % discount if you use cash, but I have no idea how many customers take them up on that. I sure wouldn't go out of my way to look for stores that do that.

I cut down my cash transactions to less then $20 a week, if that much and it has been at least 3 years since I last written a money order (longer then that for writing an actual paper check from a bank account).