You do know there will be a 99 cent surcharge on that,

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right?" asks the drive thru cashier when I hand him my debit card. I've been in line at the fast food place for 15 minutes of my 30 minute lunch break, my stomach is growling, there's a line of impatient drivers behind me and this yahoo is holding my food hostage. "Yeah," I mutter, agreeing to pay what amounts to a 30% surcharge for the privilege of paying for my food with a debit card. I swear it's a conspiracy (LOL) the banks and the merchants got us addicted to using debit cards, now that we can't live without them, we are willing to pay for the privilege of spending our own money. Need cash? ATM surcharge 1 - 3 dollars (casinos and some big name amusement parks charge up to 5 dollars per transaction.) Then of course there is your own bank who may stick on an additional dollar or two. Pretty steep fees to take your own money out of the bank. So I got smart, instead of taking cash out of the bank I just started paying for each individual purchase with my debit card. But I've noticed in the past year, most places of business are tacking on a surcharge, from a quarter to a dollar. Some tell you right up front, even offer an opportunity to cancel the transaction. Others just stick it on your total and never say a word. So what you are doing is paying them to let you pay them. Well that's my rant for today, how do you feel about it? Do you pay the surcharge, or have you gone back to using cash? Or were you smart enough to never get addicted to plastic in the first place?