Cellar Scribblings

[brianr]

What's a christmas club?

I have never been in one but here supermarkets advertise that you join and put money aside throughout the year so that you have it available to spend in their store at Christmas. Personally I cannot see the advantage but then I am very good at saving money in the usual places - bank term deposits. Also as my family do not give gifts and Christmas dinner is only a bit more of a splurge than usual, there is no need. I guess they are good for people with large families and low incomes.

[Sason]

Ah, thanks for explaining Brian!

We don't have them here. People have to save their money in other ways.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I can remember my parents having Christmas clubs when I was a very small boy. They also had vacation clubs. They all worked the same way. You got a coupon book, and you turned in a coupon with the money.

I think back in the day it was a good way for working-class folk to put money by for Christmas presents. I really don't think any bank here does that anymore. Of course, I'm speaking of 50 years ago, when credit cards were only for the wealthy. And I don't think there were many credit cards other than American Express back then.

Department stores had what were called charge-a-plates. They worked sort of like credit cards. They were little metal plates, and you put them in something that looked sort of like a big stapler, and they made an imprint on your sales slip so didn't have to pay cash for a purchase. However, you had to pay the balance each month. You couldn't carry a balance on your account like you can on a credit card today.

I guess travelers' checks/checques are a thing of the past, too. My father always got travelers' checks when we took a vacation. Thirty years ago I would use travelers' checks from American Express when I went on vacation, just like my father.

And it isn't humanly possible that I'm now speaking of things as 30 and 50 (!)years ago.

[serious crayons]

I almost never use any kind of checks these days. I rarely even carry cash!

It is weird to think how many once normal things have changed seemingly quickly. I'm reading an Oliver Sacks piece in the New Yorker that he starts by saying his aunt, who lived to old age, said she pretty easily got used to modern inventions like planes and cars and so on. But what she couldn't get used to were the things that had disappeared. "Where are the horses?" she'd always say, recalling the horses and carriages of her youth.

[CellarDweller]

Hiya BetterMost friends.

I hope everyone is doing well today!

I'm off work today, I took a personal day to sleep in after a late night last night at an Oscar party. 

Bright blue skies and sun here, but high wind gusts!  It's making it feel much colder.....it's about 35 now, but brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[brianr]

I write about 2 or 3 cheques per year to the U3A (university of the 3rd age)  group as the current treasurer refuses to allow payments online. Both Australia and New Zealand were going to phase out cheques in 2018 but the decision was reversed.
I thought Travellers cheques had gone but apparently they are still available but online people have complained about the difficulty of cashing them. usually you have to go to a bank and even need to find which banks will accept them.
I think it was in 1974 (may have been 76) that I was sitting in a park in Zurich and watching people go up to the wall and take out cash and think how wonderful 
Now they are closing ATMs in the suburbs here as people are not using cash anymore. It is over a year since I went past the front door (location of the ATM) of my bank. Almost all my banking and payments are done sitting here at my computer in my bedroom. Just as well, as I have 3 bank accounts in Australia and 3 here in NZ. On Friday (March 1) I will take about half an hour to check them all and update my accounts.
I use to pay my lawnmower man by cash or, if I missed him too many times, then a cheque and I drove to his home and put it in his letterbox. Thankfully he has now given me his bank number and I just pay him online once per month in summer.
At the moment I do use cash for anything under $20 (slipping recently to $15) but many of my friends use a card for their coffee ($4.50)

[CellarDweller]

What's a christmas club?

I have never been in one but here supermarkets advertise that you join and put money aside throughout the year so that you have it available to spend in their store at Christmas. Personally I cannot see the advantage but then I am very good at saving money in the usual places - bank term deposits. Also as my family do not give gifts and Christmas dinner is only a bit more of a splurge than usual, there is no need. I guess they are good for people with large families and low incomes.

I can remember my parents having Christmas clubs when I was a very small boy. They also had vacation clubs. They all worked the same way. You got a coupon book, and you turned in a coupon with the money.

I think back in the day it was a good way for working-class folk to put money by for Christmas presents. I really don't think any bank here does that anymore. Of course, I'm speaking of 50 years ago, when credit cards were only for the wealthy. And I don't think there were many credit cards other than American Express back then.

I almost never use any kind of checks these days. I rarely even carry cash!

It is weird to think how many once normal things have changed seemingly quickly. I'm reading an Oliver Sacks piece in the New Yorker that he starts by saying his aunt, who lived to old age, said she pretty easily got used to modern inventions like planes and cars and so on. But what she couldn't get used to were the things that had disappeared. "Where are the horses?" she'd always say, recalling the horses and carriages of her youth.

When I first started using a Christmas Club, it was way back, and it was a coupon booklet type thing.  You would go to the bank in October or so, and you would tell the teller you wanted to open a Christmas Club, and what the end total you would want (say...$500.00).

You would be given a book full of coupons, each with the same denomination on it.   Once a week, you'd go to the bank, tear out one coupon, and give them that set denomination with the coupon.




On the anniversary date of the club being opened, the club would automatically close, and the funds, plus interest, would be mailed to you in check form.  This way, by the end of October or beginning of November, you would have your money back, and be able to use it for your holiday shopping.




When I started my current job, I opened a club account here as well, but the coupon books were a thing of the past.  I was given a passbook account, and instead of a set denomination, I could deposit as much as I wanted, and on the anniversary date of the account opening, the funds would be automatically transferred to my checking account.




Passbooks are now a thing of the past as well.  I can't remember the last time I've seen one.   I have 4 different accounts.  My main checking account where I pay all my bills.  My secondary checking.  This is were I hold my funds until I need to use them.  A money market for my "don't touch" savings.  A statement savings for my holiday funds.

It may seem convoluted, but it makes sense to me! 

I get paid, and all the funds are put into my main checking account.  I then move half of the money I will need for monthly bills (rent, phone, electric, cable/internet, insurance) to my secondary checking account.  On the second payday of the month, the other half of money I will need for the bills gets placed there.  This way, it doesn't get accidentally spent.  On each payday, $50.00 automatically gets transferred to my statement savings for holiday use only.  By the time the holidays come, I have between $1,300.00 - $1,500.00 saved in it.  I spend what I have to, and the rest gets put into my money market.

Doing it this way helps to keep stuff organized.

Funds in my main checking account will be my spending cash, gas, groceries, bowling, any money in here I know I can use however I want.
Funds in the secondary checking are earmarked and can't be used for anything other than rent, phone, electric, cable/internet, insurance.
Funds in the statement savings are earmarked for holiday spending.  Anything extra gets moved to the money market at the end of the holiday season.
Funds in the money market are saved for occasional emergencies, and big purchases.  All the money I spent on my move from my parents' place to my apartment came from the money market.   When I buy the new car this year, the funds will be coming from the money market.

[Sason]

We don't have any checks in Sweden any more. I don't know exactly when they disappeared, but I haven't seen one in many years.

I remember travellers checks too. They were convenient and safe when you didn't have a credit card.

There's less and less cash in use here. People use cards, or our payment system where your bank account is connected to your phone number, and with an app you can easily pay money to any other person who's also set up for it. It's very convenient for paying to small businesses or private persons, like at a market e.g.

[Jeff Wrangler]

There's less and less cash in use here. People use cards.

The situation is very different here. Our city government is going to take up the issue of shops that no longer accept cash and now only accept cards. Refusing to accept cash is being called discrimination against poor people who do not have cards.

We were given to understand that other cities have taken up this issue, too. We are told that there is a population of poor people who do not even have bank accounts.

[brianr]

I think it is illegal here not to accept cash (legal tender) but my sister was telling me about a large shop in Sydney where you had to go to a special counter down the back if you had cash as the registers in the main shop only took cards.
There are no passbooks for new accounts now but my sister use to have to take an elderly cousin's passbook in and have it updated every month or so. My cousin would not accept anything else. It was a bit of a hassle. I think poor people here have to have bank accounts as I do not think they could receive any government payments without one.
My last night in Vancouver in 2017, I paid cash for my dinner (I wanted to get rid of Canadian money) and the middle aged waitress said to me "Oh cash, no-one uses cash anymore"
Again back in January 1977 I caught the train from Venice to Innsbruck. It was delayed by snow blocking the pass. I got rid of all my Lira  before leaving Italy as you did in those days. I checked into a B&B in Innsbruck but the lady could not cash my travellers cheque until her husband came home. I had not had any lunch and walked around the town for an hour or so looking longingly at restaurants.  Finally went back to the B&B and the husband cashed my cheque and I had a lovely big Wiener Schnitzel.  Been a favourite meal ever since.  How much easier travel is now, not only the Euro in most countries but ATMs everywhere.