So far OT - cheque books

I keep a cheque book for the rare occasion where a small group needs money but doesn't handle electronic cash.

I have always had a cheque book since {mumble} long before the Internet existed, or credit/debit cards and ATMs.

Back in the day you used cheques for everything including drawing cash, so you could keep track of your money using the little area on the LHS where you had your cheque amount and your running balance.

I just realised that the same fields are there today but the number of people who could make use of this running total must be few to none.

Nearly all transactions are electronic, as far as I know.

Anyway, so far off topic....

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David
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I feel your pain, mate. The bankers' long-term plan to take over the world is really coming together now. :(

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

I probably write 3 or 4 a year, tops.

Reply to
Huge

Life's too short for that, I think our American cousins learnt "Balancing the check (sic) book" at grade school.

Reply to
Graham.

I stopped using that method as there was nowhere to put standing orders or direct debits. Debit cards to pay bills go back a long way too - Barclays started theirs in 1987, and cash cards before then.

I started keeping a separate, written record of my bank account in 1987. I still do, as I can just glance at it without having to go online, and don't have to waste paper printing out statements every time there's a change.

Reply to
Max Demian

I have a simple but effective spreadsheet that does the calculations for me when I enter debits or credits on the next clear line. I also have a list of direct Debits etc which highlights an approaching event a few days beforehand. Occasionally, I check the balance against what the bank says, and correct any errors, such as missed events, etc. It works fine.

Reply to
Davey

I haven't been offered a cheque book from a bank in many years, though I do remember the benefits of being able to pay for stuff by cheque in the knowledge that it wouldn't come out of my account for 5-7 days. Very useful close to pay day when money was short.

Reply to
Jamie Adams

I found it useful in a rough, ballpark sort of way: a drawn check might not be presented for a while, so that would throw things off. But that would be money not available to me, so not really a problem.

I found "interest checking" to kill any accuracy, as there would be interest paid into the account which would throw off any manual calculation, And I never got an automatic calculation of interest to match the bank's reliably...

This was back in the day when one could get a checking account that would pay interest on the balance, if certain conditions were met.

Thomas Prufer

Reply to
Thomas Prufer

No I'm not sure but many people still use cheques, mostly elderly folk I find.

I still have one but perversely, I have to get somebody to do the writing for me. The other option is a nice cheque printing software package that is around. You need a printer that can handle small bits of paper though. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Yep, same here. Works well as an annual forecast for the next year once I've added a bit for inflation. I then know just how much I need to set aside on a regular monthly basis to cover expenditure and just how much I will have to play with.

Reply to
Mark Allread

David has brought this to us :

I have two cheque books with two different accounts. Recently I have used one cheque per decade, though I found I used around eight cheques recently - this dealing as an Executor with settling an Estate. It was just so much easier to write cheques and hand them over or post them, than any other payment option.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Yes, but such a derisory amount which didn't offset the extra trouble caused in attempting to check balances, as you say.

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

I have 7 accounts and use a single facility approved by the banks, to keep an eye on them. It lists all the credits and debits from each account, shows me the sum of them and graphs the result daily, monthly or going back to when I first added the accounts. It also shows which sector the spend has been in and lists up and coming regular transactions.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

That sounds like a good idea. I might set one up, but I would want it to work on my Android tablet instead of/as well as my Windows laptop.

Reply to
Max Demian

If I was blind I wouldn't trust the software not to be hacked: you might be signing cheques in favour of the hacker.

Reply to
Max Demian

I think I probably qualify as elderly folk but my Yoga teacher also caters for some younger folk and people mostly pay by cheque.

The payment which prompted the musings was a small amount to my local cycling group.

There is still a significant group of small local organisations which aren't large enough, with enough turn over, to justify setting up electronic/credit/debit card payments.

AIUI this is one reason that cheque books are still with us, although the banks would love to get rid of them.

Just remembered that corporate payments and refunds also sometimes come as cheques. Presumably because they can't mandate that (a) you must have a bank account and (b) that you must tell them the details.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Quite. And that's what the few cheques I still use are for. And even if they do accept credit cards, IME they don't meet the PCIDSS requirements so I won't have anything to do with them.

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Reply to
Huge

Anyone who reads the daily mail is conditioned to believe that cheques are safer to use than electronic means, and the film 'catch me if you can' was an item of pure fantasy?

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Reply to
Adrian Caspersz

I last wrote one in May 2016.

Reply to
Nightjar

Easiest way then is Paypal. That's what my car club (smallish) now uses. To send a cheque costs the sender postage, and the recipient business bank account charges to process it.

Paypal turned out to be the most economical way.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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