Young shoppers partial to plastic

SAN FRANCISCO — Erica Jostedt loves to shop, but she hates paying with cash or a check. There's rarely more than $20 in her wallet, and she doesn't carry around her checkbook because she usually needs it just once a month to cover the rent at her San Francisco apartment.

"I get so annoyed when I go into a place that only takes cash that usually I end up going somewhere else," she said.

Jostedt, 24, was born in the 1980s, the leading edge of a generation that is shunning paper payments like no other before it.

These young consumers so consistently reach for debit and credit cards that Visa USA has anointed the age group "Generation Plastic," or "Gen P."

Their habits are driving even more merchants to accept debit and credit cards, fueling legal battles over the fees underlying the cards and raising more concerns about the nation's shriveling savings rate.

Plastic payments — including online commerce — now account for 50.4 percent of the spending among consumers ranging from 18 to 24 years old, with cash and checks making up 41.1 percent of their spending. Consumers 25 to 34 years old spend about 45 percent either way, while everyone older still uses cash and checks at least half the time, according to Visa, the nation's largest payment network.

"All paper-based payments are in retreat," said David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, a newsletter that's been following spending trends since 1970. "People of a certain age don't even know where their checkbook is."

Judy Jostedt, Erica's 55-year-old mother, isn't so sure that's a good thing. Although she uses debit cards more frequently, Judy still writes about a dozen checks each month, partly because she feels her canceled checks help her monitor spending.

"I guess I'm a dinosaur," she said. "I worry that kids today don't even know where all their money is going every month."

As a whole, Gen P isn't using credit cards any more frequently than other age groups but depends more heavily on debit cards. Gen P uses debit cards to pay for 28.2 percent of their purchases compared to just 7.1 percent among those older than 45, according to Visa.

Debit cards — which avoid debt by withdrawing the purchase amount from a consumer's bank account — were used to pay for an estimated 23.1 billion transactions nationwide during 2005, surpassing the estimated 20.3 billion transactions paid by credit card, according to The Nilson Report.