There's nothing worse than when you get behind someone in line at a store and they pull out their pen and checkbook. Although it takes less than a minute or two to fill out a check, that moment of waiting feels like an eternity.
I rarely use my checkbook. I always have to search high and low every month to find it to pay rent. My apartment complex requires tenants to pay with a check. I wish I had the option to pay rent online.
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I recently offered to pay a friend for my portion of a trip with a check, but my friend requested I wire the money into their account or use PayPal.
So that made me want to know: Are checks about to be written off?
A National Retail Federation survey from last year's holiday shopping season proves most Americans don't carry around their checkbook anymore.
The NRF asked shoppers which payment method they were going to use to purchase holiday gifts and a measly 2.1 percent responded with checks.Here's the breakdown of the NRF survey:
Debit/check card 38.4%
Credit card 38.0%
Cash 21.6%
Check 2.1%
Margin of error +/- 1.2%
Across all age brackets, including seniors, checks were the least preferred payment method.
According to the 2013 Federal Reserve Payments Study, the estimated number of check payments dropped from 41.9 billion in 2000 to 18.3 billion in 2012.
Some retailers are no longer accepting checks.
Some countries have abolished or restricted their usage. The United Kingdom is planning to phase out "cheques" in 2018.
Richard E. Sylla, a professor of the history of financial institutions and markets and economics at New York University, notices he writes fewer checks these days.
He says checks are on the path of persistent decline. However, he believes there will still be some people who use checks over the next 50 to 100 years.
"I think it's a slow process, as some folks still don't have devices with Internet connections, much less having familiarity with on-line banking, PayPal, Apple Pay, etc.," Sylla said.
Let's go back for a history lesson on checks.
Checks were first adopted in the eastern Mediterranean during the first millennium.
By the 10th century, checks called sakks were widely used in the Muslim world. Merchants preferred to use a sakk for payment rather than carry around money on their long journeys.
The first printed check debuted in 1762 in England. Serial numbers were placed on these pieces of paper as a way to "check" on them.
More than 250 years later, checks are still being written.
So maybe it's much too early to date their extinction.