Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 04, 2023

I haven’t written a check since the 20th century. Happy 2023!

Old unfunny joke.

Does he write the days on his Poles and the month on his Cossacks?

While we’re wondering what a check is, perhaps we could also wonder what a postage stamp is.

Discover Bank app to take a picture of a check to deposit it doesn’t work on my Kindle Fire. It says app need an update and sends you to the Google Store. The Google Store doesn’t play nice with Amazon. I have to mail checks to Sault Lake City with a deposit slip. You can withdraw cash from Discover Bank from an Atm, but you can’t make a deposit.

I still have to write a few checks per year for some weird bills.

I definitely write fewer checks than I used to, but just mailed several to my nieces and nephews.

A couple of years ago, due to Covid, our local tax office allowed payment online with credit card to be fee-free. But back to normal, 3+% is a little steep for me. So I mailed a check last week.

Not only do I still use a check and a stamp every month or so, for a couple of my online payments, the bank mails a physical check.

Reminds me, I have to check my chequing account before I write a cheque out to give as a gift so I can check it off my list.

Using a check (or cash) saves the local merchant the credit card transaction fee. Those fees can add up. Several gas stations hear about offer cash discounts.

I only write 6 checks each year for 4 vehicle registrations and 2 for county property and school taxes.

I’m down to one check a year. I don’t know the last time I used a stamp.

I write checks for gas, electric and water.

I still write checks as I feel I can keep a better handle on outflow. But more and more being forced to pay online.

A check is sort of like a debit card… only paper instead of plastic..

Well, Kid, what to tell you. A check is an instrument of payment for debt or purchase and one is expected to write it in a log book and to balance what is paid out against what one has in the bank. In other words – a system of checks and balances: the same words that once were associated with the operation of our government. And that idea, like the checkbook and balance sheet, has fallen into the wastebasket of time. Neither exists as a viable entity anymore.

Welp, we still gotta pay our local taxes by check.

Check: the thing you will absolutely still be using if you don’t want to get totally shafted on large purchases. Those merchant fees are what keep credit card companies and transaction services like PayPal in business, but they can really add up to a lot of money if you’re not paying attention. I had to hire a giant pumper truck to deal with a spring on my mother’s property while a sewage line was repaired last summer; cost $1200 and insurance didn’t cover that. You darn well bet I cut a check; I wasn’t gonna pay the credit card processing fee on that if I didn’t have to, because that’s not a flat fee. It’s a percentage. So kids, LEARN UP about this stuff or you’re gonna be paying through the nose.

Checks are not just an old timer thing. They are very much still real.

I’m going to write a check today: the club I belong to is so old-fashioned that checks are the only form of payment for the annual dues.

Does anyone remember counter checks?

Old joke from the TV show Dear John: “Just remember, the Czech is in the mailroom.”

You young whippersnappers and your fancy CHECKS! Why, in my day it was good hard, solid cash MONEY, none of this fancy stuff you needed a bank to handle before you could spend it!

A way to pay bills while avoiding debt… More people should discover those and cash to avoid wasting their hard earned money on debt interest. Budgeting is a double sided equation which can be tackled either by bringing in more money OR by reducing expenditures (which means understanding where the money is going, and knowing the difference between need and desire).

I remember grade school lessons at age 11 late in 6th grade after my class had completed other grade level essentials on filling out checks that were done partly to help w a future life skill and partly to teach us the importance of following directions while making us feel more competent. Too bad they did not figure out a way back then to use budget books as part of lesson plans so that could have been learned before needed but fortunately learning goes on through life. (We got some fun and creative lessons in those final months of that class.)

Checks and balances are what keep our government so effective.

In the 1980s I wrote about 300 checks a year. Now it’s about 25. I use them mostly for charitable contributions, so that only my postal address ends up on every junk-mailing list in the world, instead of both my postal address and my e-address.

a ‘check’ is what EVERY OLD PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU USES at Kroger >:(

One of David Letterman’s funniest jokes:

“So here it is a New Year, the Year of the Dog…And dumb old me, I’m still writing the Year of the Pig on all my checks.”

I wrote three checks last year to the group that remodeled my bathroom.

A “check” is what you use to pay the “newspaper boy.”

Those who don’t know the answer either carry a lot of cash or love paying fees for using a card.

For whatever reason you’re writing the date, when you write January it’s a huge hint that the year has changed.

In business there are many vendors that still use checks. If you are transferring larges sums you also may need a check. Zelle and other apps have daily limits. I enjoy technology but try to avoid being a techno snob.

Thanks. As if I wasn’t already feeling ancient.

@DaBump The Universe is 14 Billion years old. You and I are new here.

Our lives are so short they barely exist.

“Checkuary” – n. – The period between January 1 and when you stop putting the previous year on your checks.