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Cellar Scribblings

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brianr:

--- Quote from: Sason on February 23, 2019, 06:25:24 pm ---What's a christmas club?

--- End quote ---
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!

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