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I wish every high school made it mandatory for children to learn how to balance a checkbook and the implications of dept (time value of money).

the implications of dept! sorry, I couldn't help myself.

But really, I think most high schools do teach that. I went to a highschool that was not very good at all, and we spent a fair amount of time on that in math class

Meanwhile in Africa: Mobile phone payments are obsoleting cash, card and check

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-mobile-phones-...

Mobile phone payments are most certainly not rendering lessons about financial planning obsolete, however.

Who uses checks?

Anyone who owns a house? I just wrote one the other day: after a rainstorm we had a water leak and I paid the water mitigation contractors with a check. So far I haven't seen any contractors carrying Square Readers.

It still baffles me that no one uses wire transfer in the US.

FWIW It's not very streamlined in the states. I once needed to accept a wire transfer, and it was rather difficult. I ended up needing to open a new one-off account at an entirely different financial institution to do it.

Isn't this common sense?

In retrospect it certainly seems like common sense. In practice I've met a number of not-stupid people who do not follow any sort of methodical recording keeping in their che ckbook and who do not understand the actual cost of having credit card debt and incurring interest that remains unpaid over time.

I'm surprised when someone tells me that are keeping money in a checking or low-interest savings account rather than paying off credit card debt. For whatever reasons they believe this is a common-sensible thing to do.

I'm surprised when someone tells me that are keeping money in a checking or low-interest savings account rather than paying off credit card debt. For whatever reasons they believe this is a common-sensible thing to do.

Because the amount of money you "have" (for spending, emergencies, whatever) is what's in the checking account rather than that plus the remaining credit line on your card, and there's an element of fear/panic about running out (and I guess getting hit with overdraft fees). That fear/panic means that logic suddenly doesn't apply.

As the saying goes, common sense isn't.

That said, we definitely had "checkbook" type lessons in jr. high math class when I was there (early 90s).

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