Pew Research Center: What Americans Pay For -- and How

The Pew Research Center just released the results of a survey it conducted last Fall regarding what kind of expenses people are paying for and how they make those payments. They spoke with 2000 people by telephone and asked them about their daily purchases and monthly bills, whether they used cash or checks or cards, whether they followed a budget and if they had ever experienced debt problems. The results are quite fascinating.

To pay for everyday purchases, people use: Cash 37%, Debit 31%, Credit 16%, Checks 15%
For monthly bill paying, people use: Checks 54%, Online 28%, Cash 15%

Debit card use was higher among younger people whereas checks were more popular with the over 65 crowd. 18-29 year-olds rely primarily on cash (52%) for everyday living expenses.

I've excerpted two of the numerous charts from the report: