You never have to leave your house

Most employers offer direct deposit for your paychecks. You can pay all your bills, make transfers, and perform almost any other bank transaction online. If only we could get Grandma to direct deposit our birthday checks we'd be set. Unfortunately, paper checks will probably be around for a while longer. So, you're stuck driving down to the bank to deposit Grannie's loot. Unless of course you could just scan your checks and deposit them through your online banking service. I've actually been doing this for the last 9 months or so with usaa.com and, I have to say, it's freakin' awesome. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how they're detecting fraud with the scan and deposit method but I guess they must have it figured out. With this little advancement you truly never have to go to a local branch (as far as I know, the closest USAA branch to me is in San Antonio, about 1400 miles away).