For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 15, 2010

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    The Duke 1  over 14 years ago

    “How can I be out of money? I still have checks!”

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    Donna White  over 14 years ago

    And again I say - Thank God for online balance info! I don’t know what I did before it.

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    wetidlerjr  over 14 years ago

    Someone said yesterday that the daily strips are re-runs. This is not true. While the last new Sunday strip was in July of this year, the daily ones are new. New daily strips started back up on Sept 1, 2008. They go back in time with the Pattersons but are new strips.

    See: http://www.fborfw.com/behindthescenes/hybrid/

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    jkebxjunke  over 14 years ago

    she has a bright future with the gov… bout the way they handle money

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    ckingsley123  over 14 years ago

    I worked at a bank call center. My favorite story is when i got a call from a college kid who was quesetioning overdraft charges on his checking account. His comment was “why did I bounce checks? I still have checks here in my check book - so I should still be able to write them.” Of course, he had no cash left in his checking account. Also, the people who never balanced their checkbooks were lawyers and doctors - we think they always figured they had enough money in their account.

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    lightenup Premium Member over 14 years ago

    Exactly what I was thinking, JFri. Too bad some people actually believe that.

    Good idea, ladyfingers86. This is an opportunity for a Personal Finance 101 class for Elly.

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    dsom8  over 14 years ago

    It may be a stereotype, dakabn5, but Jon’s description in panel 1 is exactly what I found in my wife’s checkbook the first month after we married (1975).

    Switched over to duplicate checks and have been happy for 30 years. (During the last 5, the unsubstantiated debits I find online have become more frequent.)

    Oh, and we no longer have checks. Does that mean we have no money? (/tongue-in-cheek)

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    celeconecca  over 14 years ago

    she must have learned something to run a store later

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    summerdog86  over 14 years ago

    Tidler, these ARE re-runs. Duckie gave us an exact date for this strip yesterday, and some of us remember them and have the old books with the dailies in them to compare these strips to. You can also tell by the drawing style.

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    Dry and Dusty Premium Member over 14 years ago

    JFri as a bank teller, you would not believe how many times customers said that to me! Seriously!!!

    (And now a lot of them are running the government in Washington!)

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    gmanell  over 14 years ago

    I guess many females used to completely rely on their husbands to pay all the bills etc. My mom was born 1912, and she was one of them. Most of your comments above seem to hint that all females are stupid when it comes to taking care of check books etc. Ever since I married back in 1968, I have been the bill payer and check book balancer in my family (I am female). Now I pay almost everything electronically. I think my hair dresser is just about the only one that gets a check from me. The strip is a RERUN from years ago, so maybe that can be Ellie’s excuse.

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    billdi Premium Member over 14 years ago

    more evidence that this strip is an outdated waste of time and space. Fans: why not just buy the books, read them to get your fbofw fix (and further enrich lj) and give someone with new, funnier and more current ideas a chance.

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    Muzition  over 14 years ago

    Bill Tidler Jr. – the daily strips are NOT new. There are no new strips now, just reruns. The link you posted is from a few years ago while the “hybrid” was still going on, but all that stopped some time ago.

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    mrslukeskywalker  over 14 years ago

    Oh this just makes me cringe on so many levels!!!! (I’m an Accountant and so is my mother.)

    Howtheduck, thanks for the backup of my statement 2 days ago. I just knew it! : )

    People should only use checks to pay bills. People who annoyingly write checks in stores to pay for everything are usually the ones who eventually have money stolen from their checking accounts. You should write the checks for your bills, and transfer the amount to cover them into checking the day you mail them. It almost reduces the chance of being stolen from to zero.

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    Frankr  over 14 years ago

    Bildi:

    There’s no shortage of space on GoComics for new strips that are deemed good enough. It’s not like the newspapers where there are space limitations.

    I don’t enjoy this rerun as much as Calvin & Hobbes, Boondocks or even Mutt and Jeff but I wouldn’t like to see it removed.

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    pattybf  over 14 years ago

    Hi Mrs. Luke:

    In our neck of the woods if you pull out a check, 99% of the stores ask you to just sign it. They then put it into their franking machine which fills it out in a second, and they show it to you to verify the amount. The total of the check is debited to your account instantly, just like a debit card which most people use now because of this. (just watch out when you are putting in your PIN number. I always put my arm over the keyboard. Maybe a little obsessive but better safe than sorry) If you choose to do the check thing, however, it really doesn’t hold anyone up but you better make sure you have the money in your account to begin with, which, I believe, is the way you should do business anyway. (No money, no buy).

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    Gretchen's Mom  over 14 years ago

    Just another reason, whether you’re a man or a woman, to keep your checkbook properly balanced all the time so you know exactly how much money you’re got … no matter how many checks you’ve got left!!!!!

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    Notgiven  over 14 years ago

    I knew a high school mathematics teacher and a business ed major who teaches middle school computer skills who never even opened their bank statements, back before the internet. I wonder if they look at their accounts online now?

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    kraftjeff  over 14 years ago

    Just because one is a mathametician doesn’t mean that they know how to balance a check book or maintain a budget.

    My father in law was a college math teacher but couldn’t budget and balance a check book to save his ….

    As for Lynn I thought she had gone into a more permanent retirement over the last couple years…..

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    Sugie63  over 14 years ago

    This is ridiculous. The comic was written by a woman and she is degrading herself. How sad :-{

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    ImaPlugger2  over 14 years ago

    We didn’t have FBOFW in our local paper until the year April was born. I never saw these earlier years, but they sure explain what happened to the Johnston marriage. Not that it was an unusual relationship back in the 70’s. I loved the drama and soap opera effect of this strip’s later years. These old re-runs are just sad.

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    kraftjeff  over 14 years ago

    sugie63 — in a way it’s not. If you ever get your hand on the 25th year anniversary book she said that her early work had her making fun of herself a lot. For example her nose. Well specifically Mrs. Patterson’s nose. According to what she wrote the nose would change size on a regular basis. And in her Lynn’s mind she was making fun of herself when she did that.

    Basically it sounded like her early works on the strip were in some ways degrading and it was something she tried to change over time.

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    hildigunnurr Premium Member over 14 years ago

    We’ve all but outlawed checks here, I still have my checkbook somewhere but haven’t written one in at least 5 years. For the last 4 years before that I only wrote them to pay the pizza delivery man. Then he got a card machine…

    Still do get paid with checks once in a rare while, though.

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    mrslukeskywalker  over 14 years ago

    Patty BF, with debit cards, I tell people to just hit credit instead of debit so they don’t have to enter a pin# and risk having the person behind them see it, which I have seen numerous times. Most people still don’t know they can do that. We have that check thing too. Where I am they usually ask for ID and the store card. I don’t pay by check, but the people who do usually wait until the bags are in their cart before they bother to pull out the checkbook. The people behind them find that annoying, especially in the express lane.

    I agree completely on the no money no buy method, with everything including and especially with credit cards. if you can’t pay the bill in full when it comes, don’t buy it.

    Thanks for being polite to me today. This is a first for us, and it’s so much nicer. Have a great day.

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    Gretchen's Mom  over 14 years ago

    MrsLukeSkywalker:

    Whenever I pay with plastic, it’s always a credit card. I don’t possess a debit card and never will; it would just be too easy to spend too much. Plus, all those little scraps of receipts to keep up with? No thanks!!!!!

    I also agree with your statement regarding paying your credit card in full every month. I’ve got no idea how much my interest rate even is. It could be 100% for all I care because it really doesn’t matter. I pay my c.c. bill on time and in full every month … always have, always will. I keep close tabs on my purchase amounts to make sure I don’t spend more this month than I can comfortably pay for next month. Too bad more people don’t share our philosophy on this subject.

    Every now and then I will pay for something at the local Wal-Mart, pet store, etc., with a check and when I do, unlike all too many people who seem completely surprised when a cashier actually wants payment of some sort after ringing up their purchases, my checks are always filled out and ready to go (with the exception of the total amount) so as not to hold up the line behind me any longer than necessary.

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