By NICOLE PEDERSEN-McKINNON

If you like giving the nice checkout chick/chap your autograph to buy groceries, you’ll be hungry come Friday. And be washing dishes at restaurants. And potentially miss the shoe sale of the century.

In just three days, signatures will be switched off on credit and debit cards. You’ll need a PIN – a Personal Identification Number – to complete a purchase.

If you are one of the roughly 1 million Aussies who still use a pen instead of PIN, here’s what you need to do…

1. Contact your issuer now

Get onto your bank or institution today if you don’t have a PIN or can’t for the life of you remember it. They may need to post one out to you so there’s no time to delay.

With any luck, though, your issuer will have an efficient online process that will take a matter of seconds. (Don’t forget any cards that may be buried in your purse for emergencies.)

2. Choose a smart number

You need to pick a PIN that is memorable but not crackable – so don’t be a twit and choose anything consecutive or repetitive. There was recently an Adobe hack of 38 million users that revealed the 20 most popular passwords include 1234 and 1111. Be a lot smarter.

Don’t use anything related to you either; think birthdays, addresses, phone numbers. Anyone could guess these if they knew you or obtained your details. And don’t lift four digits from your card number; this is a gift to a scammer.

If you’re worried about how you’ll remember yet another PIN, it may help to choose one based on the pattern your finger makes keying it (but, again, be careful not to be obvious).

Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon

3. Make the bank pay

What isn’t changing is your institution will still be liable for any fraud. Or they will if you live up to your end of the bargain. That means…

–  Keep your PIN secret – writing it down, especially close to your card, is like leaving the door open to your house.

–  Monitor your balance – banks have sophisticated software to raise the ‘fraud flag’ if there are changes to your purchasing pattern, but be vigilant yourself.

–  Report immediately if your card is compromised – responsibility shifts to your issuer as soon as you do.

There’s a one in 10,000 chance of randomly cracking a PIN; Meanwhile, my signature changes depending on how many bags and babies I’m carrying.

Our money should be safer from Friday.

Here are some other outdated things that we miss (mostly…):

An old internet dial up modem.

An old nintendo controller.

Video stores are becoming things of the past thanks to internet downloads.

Old video cameras have been replaced by the smartphone

Televisions have been replaced with a flatter, thinner version. Also 3D.

Home phones. Who even uses them anymore

RIP VHS. Bluray is the new go-to.

Disc holders…now we use computer folders

Snake was a fabulous phone game. Now we have Apps.

Flip phones have been replaced by the smart phone.

A real tamagotchi…now we use an App

Pay phones are fast becoming things of the past