Ill start, I never used a check. The only way I can get a house is waiting for my parents to die.
I remember watching Headbangers Ball on MTV.
Discovering Amon Tobin on Subterranean.
He spun a set at Treasure Island Music Festival. There was a sick track that he opened with that he later released free on his website. I sadly lost it and haven’t been able to find it since.
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.
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.
My first bank card was a little book that the bank teller would write amounts in when you deposited or withdrew.
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.
I can remember people using checks at the grocery store and have been a flea market seller then a barber, a cashier, a dance teacher and finally an accountant, still an accountant. I paid off my student loans in 5 years, and Pell Grant covered the tuition.
My younger children will have to wait for me to die to get a house, a couple of the older ones did already. Though honestly I think the prices will crash, that’s how I got in the first time, and it’s happened again since that time.
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.
I had to explain to my parents that as an engineer I would never be able to raise a family on a single income
One family does that. And while they have a house, they never have enough money for something.
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.
I figured that efiling started in the mid-2000s. Nope, 1986. I was not paying attention.
Yeah it was waaaaay earlier, which I found out too when I was writing my comment. But I did start working in the early/mid 2000s, when I was 16. Even in 2000s, it was still typical to go to the public library and grab tax forms. Or print them out from the IRS website.
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.Are your vinyls ones you purchased brand new, before other forms of media were available?
If no, same question for the tapes
I was too young to purchase cassettes (though they were a vibrant part of my childhood I spent every penny of allowance on penny candy and saving up for game carriages) but I am definitely old enough to never be emotionally ready to part with those mini cloth binders full of CDs.
My first paycheck paid for a Sony Walkman that played disks.
I also know the brach manager of my bank by name. It’s cause I work there tho…
You’re 47 and grew up upper middle class, likely in an affluent suburb on one of the coasts.
Less old, less well-off, much much less coastal.
35, lower middle class, landlocked?
I bought a graphic hoodie off the Internet by mailing a paper cheque to a PO Box.
This reminded me of when I first bought something off eBay. I mailed out a check and crossed my fingers.
I am right on track to achieve Freedom 35 - living in my car and hopping from place to place to park overnight.
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 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.
Are you approx. 50 years old?
Mid 40’s by birth
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.
I’d say this puts you in the early 40s.
Very much correct. 41 to be precise.
My career (as opposed to jobs) started in 2009 when a “job” opened the possibility of interviewing for a career position and I managed to nail it. I truly didn’t think I’d ever have a career due to lack of credentials (higher ed completion). Luckily, you can be self-taught in my industry and boy am I.
Your first paragraph reminded me of a song verse,
[Verse 2] Fuck yeah, I’ve always been anxious 'Cause I’ve always been in debt And when I was eighteen two planes flew into a fucking building And we’ve been at war ever since We destroyed the environment Fuck the government, it’s an embarrassment We’re all going die in debtName of the song?
I use checks regularly. My first job had rules for the benefits of old timers that included pensions and paid out sick time. I own a home. My retirement is entirely dependent on 401k savings. I own life insurance and have done estate planning.
62?
Far too high.
But you use checks? Hmmm. Parent of kids in school?
