<p>Well, I think I would have gone with the cheaper way (adding money to my account when needed) when I was a student, but now that I’m older and have a lot more things on my mind like working and paying bills (as I’m sure a lot of parents do), I’m willing to fork out extra money for “convenience” so I don’t have to spend too much time managing little things like making sure I have money in the account so I can eat (or in the parents’ case, making sure their kids don’t starve). It’s probably the same reason why people reload their Starbucks card (ok, I know Starbucks doesn’t charge you extra to reload the card so it’s not an equal comparison) when cash works just as well.</p>