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Everyone has their own take on credit and debit cards. I know people who have ruined their life with them. I completely understand why someone would stray away from using a card, even if they haven't had credit card debt in the past.
What I do personally is have a list on a sheet of paper telling me where my money is supposed to go. Everything that can be an automatic payment is an automatic payment, some on my credit card and some on bill pay. A couple things I do use a check for, like my savings account that's in another bank, so I write those out on the first of the month.
When the 1st of the month rolls around I take a look at my list, compare it with my online bank statement make sure I have enough in the account for another month and take the rest out in cash. The amount I need in the bank account is a fixed number (give or take the payments that have gone through by the 1st). If something changes out of the range it's supposed to I figure out if that's a one time thing or if I'm going to be paying more for said service, etc., and make the change on the paper if need be.
It take that left over cash and use it to pay for everything else (groceries mainly), unless I absolutely need a card. If I can't pay in cash I take that same amount in cash back to the bank and redeposit it to cover the cost of the payment through the card. When I run out of cash I know I can't buy anything else.
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