OT. Slower Mail Delivery

In the past they owned two properties and one was all rental. Nice to get a phone call "want to use the place on Central for four days next week?" They had a cancellation. Rental was $8,000 a week in peak season.

Husband owned the family business and though they had some bucks, not the least bit pretentious. Just lovely people.

Oh, one reason I like staying at the shore home over the regular home, no steps. Just take the elevator.

Yeah, but that's the country where people have wholesome values.

Seriously, when I was little kids ran around by themselves all the time, but these days parents are afraid to let their kids out of their sight. It's not as bad with outgoing mail, but I don't think I have to ask my neighbors to know that some would be reluctant to mail a letter that way.

I paid my taxes recently, online. It was free to use an "electronic check" but I think it was going to be $44 to put it on a credit card.

It's been that way for years.

On something really important, I might do the same. Back when I was disorganized, the first sign I had that I hadn't paid my property taxes were letters from people trying to buy my home. I don't think they even said why I would want to sell, but eventually I figured out why they had chosen me. If I didn't read them because they looked like junk mail**, the next sign already cost fees, lawyers fees or something. And not only that, very obnoxious they were at the lawyer's office. I feel sorry for people who are as disorganized as I have been and don't have the money to pay the extra charges.

The poorer people are, the more they pay for things. Like the multiple payement fee you just mentioned if they don't have all their tax money at one time. Like higher cost for heating oil if they don't have a good credit rating, like paying rent sometimes by the week instead of the month, etc.

Yes, true of many things where the larger size will save from 20% to 50% if you can afford the big package. One bar of soap or the ten pack? Adds up over time.

Our tax collectors are state of the art here. In fact DMV (Florida highway safety sumpin) has contracted the tax collectors to do all their business. (tags, titles, licenses). They make it real easy for you to give them money and they take it with a smile. The folks there are real easy to work with. You can do almost anything online unless they really need to see you.

Sounds cool. I don't think we ever paid more than $3k a week for any house we rented and that was silly IMHO but my wife was happy and she was paying..

My wife does that with her phone to the bank but they don't seem to have extended it to PC users. You are just attaching a picture of the check so it is just a software problem (for anyone who can scan or take a picture of a check). I don't know if she can pay bills that way but I think she uses EFT for everything. That you can do on a PC.

Banks are the worst. They don't make a lot of money from people who have money but it gives them liquidity. Poor people pay for the staff, keep the lights on and buy the CEO yacht. If you have enough money in the bank you don't pay any fees and if you pay off your CC every month, they don't make any money there (other than the 2-3% vig). Once you start bouncing checks, making minimum payments and paying credit card interest, the bank will bleed you dry. They also have a fee for anything you do. One disturbing practice is clearing checks starting with the biggest one and working their way down so if you bounce a check it starts with the biggest one you can't afford and then you get charged for all of the rest of them. They hope some of those rubber ones are the minimum payments on your CCs so they can charge you for missing them too.

There are plenty of products where the "box" (packaging, and handling cost etc) is as much as the product inside.

I wouldn't complain, except the surcharge is much higher than the standard credit-card charge levied on the "vendor".

It would be interesting to know how much it costs them to process a paper check, in terms of time spent by someone opening all those envelopes, recording the payment, etc.

Cindy Hamilton

Remember when they used to mail you the cancelled checks with your statement? Stopping that save them a few buck.

I've been getting a page with copies of the individual checks. I have no idea how the process works but doing that probably doesn't save much money.

Former employer quit sending us notifications of pension check deposits.

From what I heard of former post office worker friends that if not for junk mail they would be out of business.

I've not even got that for years. I can go on line and download a copy of a check though.

Is that 1% pure profit or is there something else we don't know?

One would think that processing checks is a more expensive than than accepting credit cards, yet most municipalities accept checks for free, at least for lump sum, full payments. Installments means more manual labor, so there is often a service charge. That makes sense.

Maybe the municipalities are hoping that the trend towards on-line transactions will actually allow them to keep almost all of the extra

I don't live in the country, but I'm also not afraid to hang a letter on my mailbox. Granted, my mailbox is right next to my front door, so the thief would have to walk up my driveway and onto my stoop to get it. Perhaps (s)he could act like a DoorDash driver and leave a greasy paper bag on my steps as he grabs the envelope.

Is that worth the risk to grab an envelope of unknown contents? Maybe, but I choose not to waste any energy worrying about it.

Monthly credit card statements used to include copies of the individual charge receipts too...

...and if you don't engage in that risky behavior, then there's really nothing to worrry about ;-)