Re: banking online

That's interesting. Most people in the States seem to only use wires for large amounts of money and would use checks for most of the things you use wires for. If you asked someone here for their account number so you could wire them money, I think they would get very, very suspicious. I certainly would.

We do get our bank statements online, and pay cash for things like farmer's markets (I wish we had a guy that made strawberry deliveries! I would so be on top of that!). I routinely pay for my groceries with a credit card, which seems to be pretty normal around here, although debit is also quite common. My hubby handles the finances and I know there are pros and cons to debit and credit both but I haven't looked too much into it myself. I don't think I have a debit card, mostly because of the whole PIN thing. I'm supremely awful at memorizing numbers.

The physical branches here seem mostly to exist for opening and closing accounts, taking out loans, etc., stuff you have to do in person. You can also get rolls of change (dimes for paying the kids' allowance, quarters for laundry etc.), deposit checks if you don't do it digitally, or withdraw cash without an ATM fee.