Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for December 23rd, 2006

Yes, I ended up ponying up $26.00 to buy 150 cheques from my bank yesterday, and I think I am a shmuck for doing it. For those of you unsure of exactly what a Shmuck is (and honestly if you don’t a great Christmas gift would the “The Joys of Yiddish” by Leo Rostein, it is an amazing piece of cultural fun).

schmuck also shmuck (shmŭk) Pronunciation Key
n. Slang
A clumsy or stupid person; an oaf.

[Yiddish shmok, penis, fool, probably from Polish smok, serpent, tail.]

If you buy the book or take it out of the library, there is an amusing story about a camel to do with Smuck.

But to return to why I am a shmuck, why am I paying 18 cents a cheque for the priviledge of writing a cheque? I use one order of cheques a year at the most and the cheques predominantly go to two places, my Church and the kids’ schools (for all those hidden fees and such). The Church does offer a direct withdrawal deal, but it is once a month and I don’t like that, and the school, well they have figured out that if they asked me for $1000 fee at the start of the year I’d explode but if they ask for $50 20 times, I won’t complain as much (I may exaggerate, but it feels like that much money, that is for sure)

So what am I to do? Are there cheaper cheque printing services out there? I think it is time to go to my bank and ask why they think I should pay this much for a service that used to be free. –C8j