We don’t have credit cards, but my wallet sure is filling up. Everyone, it seems, is reducing paperwork by using some form of debit card.
Husband dear’s unemployment doesn’t come in the form of a check, but rather a reloadable debit card that gets credited every two weeks. This means I have to go to the ATM on three successive days to remove cash to pay our rent (there’s a limit on how, much y0u can take out in one day).
I successfully signed up for WIC this week, and they no longer give out paper coupons. It’s a debit card, loaded up with info on how many gallons of milk and so on you can get. Your “balance”, a list of foods that you are allowed, prints off the with the register receipt. The WIC clinic took 3 hours to get through, and they told me I was anemic (yeah, shocker), Mr X was either too short or too wide, Miss C was short, and Baby A was off the charts (15 1/4# at four months old!) But, they’ve improved the nutrition, especially for breastfeeding moms and it includes whole grain bread and tortillas, fruits and vegetables, as well as eggs, milk, and cheese. Also, they have a breastfeeding “peer” for consulting and help out with breast pumps if the nursing mom has to go to work.
We signed up for a savings account right before the layoff, and my bank has a nifty program where they will automatically transer 50 cents from your checking to your savings account each time you use your checking debit card. Then, the bank will match 100% of your transfers for the first 3 months – free money! But, it’s another card.
I got a PayPal debit card, so I don’t have to transfer money from PayPal to our savings account to our checking account. Very convenient – but another card.
Did I mention all of these cards have different PINS? And I already had a checking debit card? Even my library card has a PIN.
I suppose writing down the PINS on a card and keeping it in my wallet would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it!
Miss E was at the store with me, watching me pay. After I swiped my card, she watched me enter the PIN and then declared in a loud voice, “Mom, why’d you type in 1-2-3-4? (Where 1234 would be my PIN!). So much for that secret!
Do your children “help” you bank?
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
My daughter’s too young to notice what I’m typing in but I’ll have to watch out for that in the future. Do you not have an option of getting benefits paid into your bank account? Here they only give benefits on a card like you describe if a person doesn’t have a bank account. (Except for when the person at the job centre forgets to click on the box to say that you’ve been in and then they cancel your payment without telling you!)
You could always type up a card with the PINs disguised. For example:
Money owed for cookie sales:
Mrs. Bookson (the library PIN)
Mr. Paltic (the PayPal PIN)
Bob Wick (the WIC PIN)
and so on. Most card PINs are 4 digits, so they’re easy to disguise as a monetary amount. Just make sure you look at the card *before* you get to the place where you’re going to need it, so that it’s not obvious that you’re looking at it for a PIN.
If they are all 4 digits, you could also disguise them as phone numbers, especially if you have a list of phone numbers in your purse anyway. That’s what hubby does to keep up with the one and only PIN he has.
Who needs a list in their wallet when you can just add your pins right to your blog
I’m so glad to know you are getting help with groceries!
My goodness, but that’s a lot of plastic you are toting!
No, they didn’t give us a choice. Direct deposit would have been awesome, but I guess they send the debit cards out to everyone.
I foresee more bureacratic difficulties with that, because we don’t get a check stub to prove income. We can print out a sheet from the TWC website, but it’s not as “official” as a check stub.
Along with the kids’ and my insurance cards, I almost need a separate wallet for the plastic!
I almost went back on wic after hearing about the changes (and since husband is still struggling with self-employment), but I can’t bear the long waits with kids in tow down at the health department…
By the way, your lentil enchilada recipe is the best! Husband and I like it better than beef enchiladas.
Glad you liked it!
I know about the WIC – you have to have all the kids with you and it takes forever.
I hear you- most of the time tho even if you’re assigned a PIN, you can go online or speak to a rep on the phone to change your pin- I don’t have any credit cards either but a lot of the same cards you have and I just use the same PIN for every card, just like I have the same username and password for all my online accounts/groups, whathaveyou.
You don’t happen to know if you can sign up for WIC if you’re already on foodstamps, do you?
At the Houston office, signing up for WIC is faster and easier if you are already on foodstamps!
In the UK, if you write your PIN down and your card is later fraudulently used, and the card issuer finds out you wrote your PIN down, they may refuse to refund you for the fraudulent transactions because you didn’t take enough care to keep your PIN secure.
It may be worth changing them to something you can remember, but probably not a good idea to change them all to the same thing!
I had the number for my debit card stored as a phone number in my mobile phone until I learned the PIN.
I LOVE WIC! I try not to complain about things that are free, and you know that the three hours initially and the hour long appointments every six months isn’t bad considering how much you get. They changed their packeges in June (at least here in Denver) and I think that my family would have starved without it. I love how whole grains have been added, and now you can buy fresh fruit instead of frozen juice from concentrate. Too bad thay didn.t hve it figured out beforehand that one is healthier than the other. I also love that you no longer have to shop at one location, but instead can use your checks (Denver hasnt moved on to cards yet) at any WIC dealing retailer.
Now I just need to convince my local store to have a separate WIC aisle, in which only WIC approved items are stocked. I have all the cashiers convinved, and I remind them everytime I see a customer take 45 minutes to grab the right brand, flavor and Weight of bread. Seriously, it’s a good idea.