Asklemmy

I bought a few boxes of checks when I started working. I still have most of them.

In the first several years of working, I mailed in paper income tax returns. The govt would even send the blank forms out to everyone via postal mail. I think paper submissions were the norm, though electronic filing certainly existed.

In elementary school, for a single grade we had these checkbooks where we'd get class points and have to put them in it. On certain days we could cash them in for prizes. Have never used any form of checkbook outside of that single year.

Only time I have ever gotten a check was because I didn't have college financial aid set up to go directly to my bank or there was a refund or the time I got a maybe $20 check because the people running the place I live got sued.

um like 90. I do my own taxes.

I remember watching Headbangers Ball on MTV.

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.

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.

In junior high we got low alcohol beer at lunch.

I'll date myself down to a year. In middle school the coolest thing to do was go buy sourball gumballs in bulk and bring em into school to sell 25 cents a piece.

I have used a check, and my only hope of buying a house is waiting for my parents (or maybe one aunt) to die.

I had an actual piggy bank as a kid, where I collected loose change.

My parents gave me a weekly allowance for doing chores. Although they would forget about it for months on end, and when I reminded them, they'd just give me a $20 bill to make up for it.

I mowed lawns to make money in the summer as a kid. Also did some farm work when I hit my teens.

I wrote checks for a lot of things as a teenager. Even wrote a few just to exchange for cash at the bank. I had a debit card, but the ATM charged a fee for withdrawals. Checks were free.

I joined the US military at 18 years old and their primary banking institution (USAA) would only do direct deposit paychecks, since they only had a couple physical locations across the US. It seemed very high-tech at the time because everyone else in the civilian world were getting physical paychecks they had to manually cash in at a bank. I could only reach my bank through their 24-hr hotline, and I needed to fax documents if they needed any paperwork signed by me. I used to get a statement in the mail for every paycheck, but they stopped that around 2007 or so. Now they're almost 100% online.

My dad just died a few months ago and I'm in the process of inheriting his house (my childhood home) right now. My wife and I have been living with him for the past 2 years because we couldn't afford a decent house in today's market. I actually needed a blank check for the closing on the house (I'm buying out my sister on her half of the inherited property - using the money I inherited from my dad) and USAA emailed me a PDF of their checks, since I haven't used one in over a decade now.

Oh, and I'm receiving a pension now. The military did away with pensions in 2017, opting for a 401K-like program instead. But I joined the military when pensions were offered, so I was grandfathered into their old pension program. I get a direct deposit into my bank every month for the rest of my life now, and I retired after only serving 20 years in the military.

Plus, they're giving me free medical and dental for life because I'm 100% disabled according to the VA. That also includes a monthly VA paycheck bigger than my pension! My wife is also 100% disabled by the VA, so she's getting the same medical/dental and pay deal. She was medically discharged from the military though, so she doesn't have a pension. I was almost medically discharged, but I was so close to retirement and could still do my job, so they put me on a medical waiver and let me coast to the end.

I'm only in a good place financially because of my military service. They really took care of me. Even gave me food and housing allowances on top of my regular paycheck, so I could afford to eat and rent a house wherever they stationed me. If not for my service, I would probably be stuck in the same position as every other Millennial/GenZ/GenA now.

Although it does help that I was fiscally responsible. I had a lot of military buddies who would blow their paychecks on booze, clubbing, women, and cars. Especially on cars. Then they leave the military broke and can barely get by. I was an introvert, so I pretty much stayed in my room and saved my income for decades.

I have a credit card

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Old enough to have used a cheque, pay with credit cards and a carbon copy click-clack machine, pay for tuition and getting paid pocket money in coins.

I'm young enough to be unlikely to ever own my own home, unable to officially retire until age 67 and likely unable to live on a pension by the time I'm eligible.

I have had to use a check to pay rent and will never vote in a presidential election because elections are rigged and there's no fucking point. The American dream is dead.

Old enough to have used checks (barely), young enough to have access to a metric fuckload of free educational material online to cause me to side-eye the student loan industry before getting sucked into it.

I might be an outlier for my age / generation (also UK located)

I managed to land myself a job good enough to pay rent and save enough for a house deposit, which I bought five years ago. I am still paying my student loan back.

I am right on track to achieve Freedom 35 - living in my car and hopping from place to place to park overnight.

I shit-canned about 20 years with active alcoholism, but then made a fairly good showing in the following 15, I'd say I'm probably 10 years behind. Thankfully, my current job has a real pension, rather than a defined-contribution plan. I should be ok, assuming the city is.

I know the manager of my bank branch by name.

I have a silver certificate.

I used to have to go deposit my weekly pay in cash at the bank, as a teen.

I bought a graphic hoodie off the Internet by mailing a paper cheque to a PO Box.

Bonus round:
My music collection included CDs, but also cassette tapes and vinyl.

The optimistic nature of the 90's were the best times that ever were. Economically or otherwise. Then this asshole crashed some planes. Then this other asshole officially ended the 90's by declaring War On Assholes™ in 2001.

My first proper career (as opposed to just having a job) started in 2008, which made me nervous. While I somehow ended up on the better side of everything, the developments of macroeconomics kept me perpetually nervous about my personal finances.