Changes from Visa mean Americans will carry fewer credit, debit cards

[DFW]

56. Same here

Well, one for private expenditures, dollar based on my Dallas bank, and one for work expenses over here, euro based. That one gets hit for foreign exchange fees when I make charges outside the euro zone (Switzerland or UK, e.g.), but I’m rarely in Switzerland or the UK overnight anyway, since London, Genève, Basel and Zürich are all about a one hour flight from Düsseldorf, and hotels in those cities are usually more expensive than the flight home. My outfit would pay for it, of course, but I feel a moral obligation not to blow expense money needlessly. In return, they never question any expenses I do incur. Mutual trust is not completely obsolete.

My wife and I are very old fashioned when it comes to personal expenditures. Debt terrifies us, and we always use cash when it’s convenient, and prefer checks when it’s not. In the case of the credit cards, we have automatic deduction from bank accounts. Credit card companies LOVE debt interest charges, and getting a bill in the mail almost anywhere guarantees I won’t see it before interest kicks in. This obviously means we shouldn’t overdraw our bank accounts, so we never use them unless forced to.

Reading some of the posts here, it occurs to me that I haven’t the slightest idea what “Apple Pay” is.