We are moving to a check-free lifestyle. You can pay bills online and save 44 cents on postage and save on the cost of the checks. Banks don't return your checks and who wants them anyway? Remember when people kept them for years in old shoeboxes or something?

Of course, many banks will give you free checks. You might of course miss the "float" time between mailing your payment and when your bank debits your account several days later. I used to like to write a check for cash on late Friday afternoon if payday was Monday morning. One of the major purposes of electronic banking was to avoid the float time.

Electronic bill-payment services are common but they come with fees.

It would be interesting, as explains in the link above, how far you could go with the check-free life.

Many stores, if not all, don't like to take checks. They prefer plastic, especially debit cards. If you write a check, they convert it to an electronic payment. That means they get their money immediately. This is common in Wal-Mart.