Stop using bank cards (debit and credit)

Every time any of us uses our bank cards, the bank gets paid. Why do we feel it’s necessary to pay the banks? Haven’t they made enough of our money? I propose that we all stop using our bank cards as much as possible.

Every time you buy a coffee and use a debit card, the coffee house has to pay the bank for that transaction. Every time you do something good for your body (take a yoga class, for instance), eat healthy (buy organic produce), pay for your bicycle to be repaired (because you’ve quit driving) and use your credit card or debit card to pay for these products or services, the bank gets a cut. Fix your bike, Citibank gets paid. Buy a coffee, Bank of America just got richer!!!

It’s so odd to me, living in Portland, where everyone is for “grass roots” something and home gardening, and organic foods and yoga, that everyone, and I mean everyone, still thinks that using their plastic is a good thing. No one seems aware of the fact that the person who is providing a service or a product has to pay the bank when their customers use a card.

Today, I stood in line at the new “New Seasons” market on Hawthorne. I stood in the “15 Items of Less” line. Every one of the five people in front of me paid using their card. That means that with their salad, Citibank got paid, with their tofu, Bank of America got a cut, with their vegan pizza, Wells Fargo got a little bit more money.

People…please…stop. Go to the convenient ATM machine (remember when we didn’t have these?) and take out cash. Then use the cash to buy things. If you go to the book store and then the coffee shop and the grocery store on the way to your massage and pay all of these things with plastic, Wells Fargo just got paid FOUR times. Please stop the insanity. We must get out of our addiction to paying financial institutions for our life. We need to move forward one step at a time to where financial institutions and financial services aren’t the only job producing entities in America.