Ill start, I never used a check. The only way I can get a house is waiting for my parents to die.
I used to keep quarters in my pocket in case I needed to call home. If I didn’t have any change, I’d call collect and leave a message as my name so that nobody was charged.
55?
If OP was calling home as a teen then 45 or under is more likely, since calls on most US payphones cost a dime up until the mid-80s, when they started costing a quarter.
In grade school was taught how to write cursive so I could be taught how to use it when writing checks. I was taught that cursive was more resistant to fraud because someone would be comparing writing styles when clearing checks.
My cleared checks were returned to me by the bank so I would be able to keep record of the transactions.
My 1st bank had 2 branches and would mail a double sided newsletter to me every month. They had a play area for kids in their lobby since the line to wait for any of their 10 tellers would get long on payday.
One side of the bank was the smoking section.
Sometimes if I was in a hurry I would use their drive-up. It had 3 manned stalls, but would use vacuum tubes to send and return checks or deposit slips for the 2nd and 3rd stall.
50? Or as young as 40 if you grew up in one of the tobacco states.
Yup. I forgot to add that when debit cards became a thing you basically used them as a 24x7 bank teller, usually only at the bank. Sometimes your bank would have an atm at its own stand at the grocery store.
Oh and the delays at the grocery store because of slow check writing or getting a check OK’d.
I have a credit card
26
I used to get sandwich bags of weed from a guy that was a “DJ”. He would weigh out 3.5 grams on a triple beam scale stolen from the science classes at a local high school. Also, I could smoke cigarettes at high school in a special shed.
Have used maybe 2 cheques, bought a condo share but a house is a whole other matter. That said I don’t think it’s impossible, the main issue is just stability, if I had a partner who earnt as much then it would still be tough but not impossible.
But you can absolutely own your residence OP - just look for smaller places, in cheaper areas, and jobs that would offer a good salary : cost of living ratio. You’ll probably have to start with a condo in a HOA, etc. but that’s better than renting.
This will blow minds.
I was a city kid. In 2nd or 3rd Grade I was allowed to leave the house completely unsupervised. One of the things I liked to do was hang out by the local supermarket and ask the ladies if I could carry their bags for them. I usually got a nickle or a dime, One time an older woman gave me an entire quarter and I felt like I’d mugged her because that was so much money.
When I was 6-7 years old my friend’s mom would send us to the corner store to buy her cigarettes. We would use the change to buy candy cigarettes.
I had a toy pipe with a gun built into it. If you bit on the pipe stem a plastic ‘bullet’ would shoot out. I guess Mattel thought there was nothing suspicious about a bunch of 9 year olds walking around smoking pipes.
Sounds like the “undercover spy gear” that was popular for a while. I think there was a cigarette case that folded open and became a gun and, of course, the ink pen telescope plus the ink pen with disappearing ink! And several others as well. It was weird… we all played outside using our imagination to create fabulous worlds in the same backyard that was a grand prix track yesterday and an undersea exploration spot the day before that. A stick was a horse one minute, a cane the next, a rifle after that , and a baseball bat… hitting home runs with the bases loaded, winning the world series. Those black walnuts would sail when you made good contact!
Look… ok… it’s right there in my name…old. LOL
Oldest ‘high tech’ toy I can remember. I was about 5? It was a box with a steering wheel. There was a translucent drum with a light bulb in the center. When you turned it on the bulb would light up and you’d see a road. The drum would turn and the road would ‘move’ There was a little toy car that you would steer along the road. No dead hookers.
This unlocked a memory for me of cigarette-shaped… I think it was gum. They came in pastel colors and were coated in a fine powdered sugar.
When my friends and I walked home from school, we’d always check the bushes behind the church for empty bottles. The refund from one glass bottle was enough to buy 4-10 pieces of candy from the pick’n’mix jars at the grocery store.
My mom (80) has 20 mil or so. (Dad dead)
But she cares only about partying and home renno and refuses to even buy her kids a cup of coffee.
So we wait like vultures.
There is no cash usage. All my transactions are monitored by the bank, a massive corporation who sells my data to other massive corporations, and the government. My insurance is adjusted based on my spending habits. My social credit will soon be adjusted based on my digital currency usage (within my lifetime).
I’ve written checks at the grocery store to get cash. My high school had a smoking area and we drank wine coolers at lunch. I wasted a lot of time in AOL chat rooms and downloaded songs overnight - the screech of dialup is burned in my brain. I’ve bought new albums, 45’s, and cassettes and played my mom’s 78s. I owned a car with an 8-track player. I own a house and wish i could afford to move to a smaller one.
55?
53
I have used a check. I’m more likely to be able to get a mortgage and buy a house than to be accepted for a rental again, though I’ll likely die before paying it off. I still keep a fair amount of actual cash at home “just in case”.
Will be interested to hear your guesses.
45?
um like 90. I do my own taxes.
I’ve received checks three or four times in my life. I’ve never written one. As a kid I had a physical paper booklet for the savings account I put my birthday money into. The only way I can get to own a house is by winning the lottery. I remember when small shops had manual credit card machines that would transfer your account details to a slip of paper. I also remember when local stores would give credit to people from the community. I get low-key annoyed when I have to use cash instead of digital payments. My retirement plan is not to retire.
I’ve received checks three or four times in my life.
This is highly location dependent. If you’re Dutch, you’re probably in your mid-to-late 30s. If you’re french, you could be 20, because people still use them pretty frequently…
I once paid for gasoline after I finished filling up, with a personal check for $18 and I remember thinking “Damn, this is expensive.”
My first bank card was a little book that the bank teller would write amounts in when you deposited or withdrew.
