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Have several bank accounts. Keep the bare minimum in your day to day account, and higher sums in the other ones.

You know you can have more than one bank account.

You can have separate account that doesn’t have any cards attached.

Give that account number to your employer and then when you need transfer amounts to account with debit/credit cards.

With regard to a separate account, I would consider having one of these, in order of most preferred to least preferred:

1. An investment account to move money into, even if it's not invested.

2. A savings account at a second bank from which transactions or even withdrawals cannot be done, only transfers to your checking account at the first bank can be done.

3. A CD (Certificate of Deposit) at a bank, although this locks up your funds for the designated time.

Any checking account leaves you most at risk.

With the attitude that you have, a couch or even a shoebox will do. For others I will advise other choices.

Amusingly, there are languages where the word for bank and couch are the same: bank (Dutch).