The good'ol cash or physical check will always work. Don't believe so called the 'new money': you lose all control of your own money and at someone else's mercy.
Physical checks are headed for the dustbin of history. I write at most a check per year these days, and haven't had a new checkbook issued in the last decade. When I moved to the UK 17 years ago, it was the first time I'd seen a check since childhood - they were already "extinct" for most purposes in Norway back then. Since then I've witnessed the rapid decline in check usage in the UK as well.
Cash is headed that way too but it'll take longer.
