I also feel the same way! I know it is an irrational feeling to have but I cannot shake it!
I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check but I have for some reason always gotten new checks when I moved - which sort of made sense because rent was mostly what I would use checks for, but the bank always made me buy like 100, so now I have 500 checks with old addresses that I’ve been toting around in the fire safe for years. 
I use the cheques from several houses ago. I don’t know about the American system, but here nobody notices or cares what the address is. Maybe see if this is something you need to keep doing?
I keep using old addresses until they’re used up. Until about 3 months ago I was using checks from another state, 4? Places I lived ago. No one ever said a word.
Also though I can easily order checks through my CU’s mobile app for like $15 for 6 books of them. Stupid easy and last many years.
It 100% is not. It just felt like the proper thing to do. I have memories of my mom writing checks at the grocery store and the cashier checking to make sure her ID addrsss matched the check, so that is probably where it came from. Also, a lot of terrible landlords and a hope that if the address of the place I was renting was on the check there would be less potential for my rent to get applied to the wrong place or something. Totally not rational! Nothing about checks is rational! To make it worse, now those checks are all from my secondary bank account that has like $500 in it. I really just need to shred them.
I used the old address checks until we had to close our account because of a data breach, so… 14-15 years of the wrong address.
Shredding a chequebook sounds annoying and difficult. Burning it sounds fun and satisfying.
The internet told you to start a fire.
My parents give us a card every Christmas, with a note that “you will receive a deposit of xx shortly”
My dad is never present while we are opening these, he has slunk off to the computer room, so that the deposits can hit our accounts as we open the cards
I do wonder what happens to carbon copies when they’re lit on fire.
…maybe be sure it’s a well ventilated space 
Ash is carbon. Maybe the transformation is brief and efficient? Find out and report back.
This is a timely conversation. The girls have picture day today and the only way to pay was with a check 
I luckily had 2 left so I could order pictures.
Speaking as someone who was still able to use checks from a bank that changed hands ~3 times after I’d opened the account (and after I’d moved 5+ times since it was the first checking account I’d opened in high school), no one cares. At one point someone tried to tell me that I couldn’t use them because the routing number didn’t have enough digits, but when I pressed they tried and mysteriously it went through. The bank eventually started charging for accounts so I closed it and moved to one without stupid fees, but the entire process left me less than impressed with the banking system as a whole.
My last remaining book has an address that I lived in 10 years and 3000 miles ago.
I only use them now for paying the transfer station fee, so that book should last me another 20 years. Technically they will let you pay via credit card too, but I too don’t want to write it out on a photocopied form. Everything else finally has online payment options (even if it is annoying that the tax bill payment charges a processing fee that I could avoid if I paid by check. 
)
I write an average of 5 checks a month still! Almost exclusively for kids activities. I didn’t realize how much of an outlier I was until this thread 
I have to write checks or pay 3-5% transaction fees on so many things. Last time I ordered checks I bought the cheapest ones and when they came they were for the visually impaired. So my checks are about the size of a half sheet of paper. I always feel a little silly handing over an enormous check that is the size of a small flag. “Here is a paper. Will you please accept this paper instead of money? I have money somewhere, I promise. Take this large paper instead.”
Money is also paper when you get down to it. We have all collectively agreed to treat these particular fancy and almost uniform piece of paper as being worth a certain value, you just have different fancy paper.
Canadian fancy paper is plastic.
Part of the issue is that the Us has so many different banks (which is usually good). We have a lot of diversity in types of banks and WAY more banking institutions than other countries per capita. This makes a large scale change in infrastructure very hard.
Second problem is bankers hav been very focused on… making things like mortgage backed securities and not updating things Average people need
There’s more reasons but that is the headline
… streaming topic?
I did an episode on it years ago but maybe time to refresh
Time to go dig up episodes