Passwords gone mad

But it's me. There are plenty of other pictures out there if you want to compare.

Average age here is about 60.

That isn't a lot of you are building stuff. That is a driveway, not even a big one. My pool involved two cash payments of around 8 grand, one for the shell and one for the screen cage and a decent Harley would be $15k at least, just for an old shovel. Lots of people like cash.

I had one of the carport type garages built this year. They took a credit card for a 10 % down payment. I was told when the installers finsihed I needed to either pay them in cash or a certified check. That would be about $ 8000. Had to go to the credit union to get the check or if I wanted to , the cash.

My credit union is about 10 miles away so I seldom go to it except to get cash or deposit a check. I do get close to it once a week , about a mile away, to get groceries.

There's no way I'd pay cash for any of those things. I prefer payment methods that include a bit of tracking. When I invite a contractor or tradesman out here, one of the things I always ask is, "How do you like to be paid?" I don't mind if "cash" is one of the options, but if it's the only option I thank them for coming and walk them toward the street.

In the course of remodeling our kitchen, we hired a guy to come in and skim-coat the walls. Cash, $300. The big-ticket items (cabinets, countertops, flooring) were all purchased from real businesses and we used our credit card.

Let's see: what else might we hire done? Chopping down trees. Another company with multiple employees, paid via credit card. Roofing, ditto. Paving, I think we wrote a check. After the sales call, we never saw the boss, and I'm not about to hand $20,000 in cash to the guy floating concrete. (That was for a long asphalt driveway and a bunch of fancy stamped concrete walkways and patio.)

I just don't have a lot of need for cash. Every month or two I hit the ATM for $500 to pay the cleaner and provide the two of us with a little walking-around money.

The ATM is fast, open 24/7/365 (for the most part), and I don't have to deal with other human beings. Win, win, win.

Cindy Hamilton

I don't do much with cash,but do want some for the flea markets.

I am funny when it comes to money. I don't even think about it when I order something on line or move large ammounts around to trade stocks or the IRA by the computer and internet.

However when it comes to actual cash, I want it handed to me by a teller at the credit union. I just do not trust the ATM to give me the money I ask for. I do count the money while I am in the credit union just to make sure they did not make a mistake which so far has never hapened.

A signed receipt, with all the details, including payment type = a bit of tracking. Take a picture of the contractor's driver's license as a means to verify the signature.

BTDT and used it to rectify a problem a problem. Contractor couldn't ignore me because I had all of his information. Just saying "I'm going to notify the Attorney General's office" also helped. ;-)

That certified check is not coming on the phone either. My credit union just moved to the end of my street. I could get to them in my golf cart.

Bugger off asshole

OK maybe you don't know what you are looking at while they are doing the work. I am going to be there at every step and I buy the materials. I know what I am looking at.

In Florida there is a huge advantage to buying your labor separately from materials. Labor is tax free but if that guy includes one drywall screw it is "parts and labor" so the whole bill is taxable. If I am just buying labor, why not pay cash if that is what they want? It always comes out cheaper and I know what I am watching happen. It does make a $50,000 project like my pool or addition end up being more like $20,000 doing it "owner builder" and managing the job yourself. They would not have even let me do the addition if I had a contract for $50,000 (FEMA rules). My wife was a builder and she had her own reliable trades. It is not like paying with a check prevents you from getting a s***ty job or simply being ripped off. There are stories on the news all the time about bankrupt contractors and a bunch of screwed customers chasing their money.

Been using the ATM for 50 years and can say the same. Never an error. Many different machines in the US and Europe.

It's different in Michigan. Labor is never taxed (or almost never). I'm looking at a quote for flooring. The materials add up to $849, the 6% sales tax is $50.94, and the labor is separate and untaxed.

We went to the flooring store and just let them handle everything.

Cindy Hamilton

North Carolina changed the law on home improvements. Some of it was not taxed a couple of years ago,but the law changed. Not sure how as I did not ask at Lowes when they were in charge of installing some wood flooring. They just told me that if I had waited a while I would be charged.

I had a garage installed this year and the men I hired to do the cement work told me that if I filled out some kind of paper it would save me about $ 1000 in tax on a $ 15,000 job, so I did that.

I used to work for Chase Manhattan back in the 70's. We had some of the first ATMs. They were always on-site at a branch. They could only dispense brand new bills so we each week we "swapped" old bills for new when the armored truck showed up.

It wasn't really a "swap", but as a commercial branch in an area with lots of small businesses, we were always shipping cash out. Once the ATM's were installed, we had to order new cash to be delivered on the same truck that picked up our old wrinkled bills because we couldn't use them in the machines.

I recall that there would be the occasional discrepancy. If a customer complained that they were shorted, we would tell them that we would proof the machine after the close of business and give them a call. (This usually did not make them happy.)

Once the branch closed, we would run the remaining cash in the machine through our bill counters and compare that to what the machine said should be left. If it was over, we'd blame the ATM and let the customer know that we would credit their account. It was never huge, maybe 1 or 2 bills, and not very often.

If I recall correctly, we used 20's and 10's. My credit unit only uses 20's now.

I was the Coin Teller for a couple of years. Responsible for shipping out the loose coins deposited by our customers and ordering rolled coin when they needed it. Businesses with vending machines were always bringing in canvas bags of loose coin. We'd tag it with their account number, it would get shipped out, weighed, and their account would be credited. In order to not have to roll their coins and mark each roll with an account number, they agreed to trust our* scales and accept whatever credit was applied to their account.

I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion, but I'll see your maybe and raise you a maybe not.

I had an ATM short me $20 once and I am not sure they ever paid me back. I knew it was going to be wrong when the money came out crooked. They said they would know if the machine didn't balance but I suspect the next customer got my $20 and the pot was right.

It is just a little weirdness in how the Florida law is written.

Our machines worked best with slightly used but not too used bills. Brand new bills tend to stick together. Sometimes they would run them through the counting machine a few times to loosen them up a little but they tended to just use good condition used bills.