I had two reasons, the first is because i found it way too easy to spend on my card without thinking, and the second because I wanted to regain a bit of privacy alongside everything else I’m doing. Ive set it up in my bank that on payday, an amount of my salary automatically goes to the bills account, some goes to long term savings, some to short term savings, then the rest I take out in cash.
It really does change my perception of spending I think: Ive found myself not buying things because I didnt want to break a note and carry change. I can physically see how much I have left. I can take £20 to the pub and leave when its finished. Plus it feels really good knowing every single transaction isnt stored forever. I have a small amount of money on a contactless ring for emergencies like a bus fare or somewhere that unexpectedly only takes card.
Is anyone else still predominantly using cash day to day?
“Is anyone else still predominantly using cash day to day?”
Yes. Germany.
Heh, Germany isn’t a good example. Its really hard to find a German bank that doesn’t charge you money to let you take cash out of your own account.
Most countries in South America use cash for most transactions.
This is one thing the UK is really good for, all bank owned ATMs and most public ones are completely free to use for any cardholder of any bank. My bank doesn’t even have physical branches but I can still use the ATM of any bank lobby for free. There are some paid ones run by private companies but the fee is usually a flat £1-2 max. I’ve been to ATMs in Europe that have tried to charge me something like 10EUR to take out 30.
A lot of the convenience of the modern UK high street baking sector is because of Girobank, the 1960s Government’s successful attempt to force modernisation on the banking industry. When I hear about the ass-backwardsness of other country’s banking arrangements (especially the US) I give a little thankyou to Girobank.
Edit: Also, yes, tourist ATMs are predatory bullshit.
How’s Ireland?
Probably vaguely similar from when I’ve visited
huh, thats not common in my experience. Most people are with Sparkasse or other mayor banks which allow for free cash withdrawals, at least in their network. You can also get cash in supermarkets o.O
Sparmasse charges a monthly fee, no?
Most probably do, but thats not specific for cash and also depends on your local Sparkasse
Only if your direct deposit amount is below a threshold, which is low enough that most full time workers meet it.
And what happens when you stop working in Germany? They just steal your money every month? Fuck that
Was, das habe ich noch nie gehört? Ich habe bei der Sparkasse, Commerzbank und Santander ein Girokonto, keine davon verlangt Gebühren fürs Geld abheben bei Automaten der eigenen Bank. Bei der Commerzbank und Santander kann ich sogar 3 mal im Monat kostenlos bei Automaten einer fremden Bank abheben.
Außerdem kannst du kostenlos Geld abheben, wenn du im Supermarkt per Gieokarte (aber nicht Kreditkarte) zahlst
Hm. Since covid, even my local bakery started taking cards. Even most corner shops for late night beers do. Kebab is usually still impossible, but that seems like the final frontier.
Man, Japan and Singapore too.
Lots of heavy cash flow dense countries seem to still be a fan of the paper, honestly.
Yep I was gonna say… and Japan. 95% of places I went were cash only, I think I only used my debit card once during a trip of weeks.
When were you last there, and what areas?
2023, Yokohama, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka, Yokosuka then back to Yokohama. In three weeks I saw one toilet with no bidet. And all of the bidets were nicer than my $300 one at home… was awesome.
Sorry for the change in topic to bidet. Every week or so I’d withdraw like $300-$500 in yen and just survive off that til I was below $100 then I’d hit an atm again. Money went far because of a favorable exchange rate… and alcohol and food are extremely cheap in Japan even without those factors.
In Hiroshima, we went into a bar with 8 seats (common for bars and restaurants to only be able to host 1-2 groups, it was neat), anyway four of us drank 4-6 drinks, beers, mixed drinks, etc… I swear the barman must have given us a deal, when the check came we asked them to double check it because we thought it was wrong… about $50 for ~20-25 drinks. Insane. That was the case in most every city but Hiroshima was the cheapest bar tab I ever saw relative to the amt we consumed.
For the record, the Japanese drink like the Irish stereotype, they go HARD.
Huh. I’ve been to all of those but Yokosuka, some as recently as a few months ago but also pre 2023, and I’ve found that almost everything I go to took card. I wonder if we somehow happen to only go to places that do/don’t take card and thus have totally different experiences with cash only.
And yeah the toilets are great. Toto sells them in the US if you’re based here. A little expensive, but if you’re gonna live at your current place for a long time, it’s probably worth it.
The bar sounds awesome, sheesh. That’s the cheapest tab of that size I’ve ever heard of. I buy most of my things while I’m there due to pricing, and even then I’m shocked at how damn cheap that is haha
Tbh after being rejected for card the first day or two in Yokohama, I just stopped asking and assumed cash. So tbh it sounds like I could have used a card more, but I enjoyed handling the cool-looking money so it was a win-win 😁
If you fully stop using cashless at the grocery store you might get put on a list. Governments love tracking irregularities.
Appearing “normal” and occasionally using cash at your regular grocery store makes it far less suspicious. Then for every irregular store you can use cash.
Then more of us should get ourselves on those lists. We should make the lists useless by way of flooding them
Why the downvotes? I fear that this is not entirely paranoid if I look at the current trend.
Some credit cards offer 2% cash back… (Not points) So it’s hard to give that up when you get 2% off for just about every dollar you spend. Why wouldn’t you put every dollar on card you would normally spend.
This doesn’t work well if you are paying interest…
If you’re fiscally savvy and don’t overspend and can pay your balance in full every month and are not paying interest, this is a strong vote for choosing over cash.
However, without that…I see no benefit and would use more cash for all reasons in this thread.
This is sort of a scam though. Credit cards give rewards, but then charge the business for the processing fees. So the business needs to raise prices to cover the fees. So really no one is getting that 2% except for the card network. And if you don’t lose a card you lose 2%.
It is basically a protection racket. “It would be a shame if you didn’t use our credit card and had to pay 2% more everywhere”
Yes, I know it is complicated. Handling cash also costs non-trivial amounts. I know that the EU has limits on fees (and that is why basically no credit cards have rewards there). I also know that some businesses see the fee as more of a marketing costs because higher spenders tend to use cards and people tend to spend more on cards.
You’re also paying in the data they sell on you
Indeed. Its very uncommon to get flat cashback options in the UK for this reason. I think I had AmEx that gave me 1% for a year and nothing after that.
Out in NYC, the bodegas all have a little plaquard saying that either 1: listed prices include a 2% credit card fee and you can save by using cash, or 2: listed prices may not match your final charge because they add a 2% fee on top for credit cards.
Which is the same thing effectively but it can be sometimes confusing if you’re trying to watch for the fee.
Anecdotally, I have sometimes noticed the cashier will say a price, and then say a slightly different price when I pull out the card. So it’s not like they always apply the fee regardless. At least some of the time anyway.
Not universal of course. I don’t remember if that’s also true for grocery stores, and it’s probably not the case for big chains but honestly I don’t know.
Well that’s the way it should be. If they’re selling your data, they should compensate you for that in some way. Then it becomes a personal decision as to how much it matters to you.
As an aside, this is why I recently degoogled, having been all in on Google products for 10 years. 10 years ago you got amazing value for your data from Google but now every single useful product has been enshittified or shut down and they collect more data than ever. The sums just don’t add up any more.
I rarely use cash. Nearly everything I spend is on supermarket and they know exactly what I buy because we’re forced to use their “loyalty” programs anyway.
Then traveling: dealing with other currencies, coming home with unspendable money. And there’s no interest on cash lying around.
But I hate the tendency for places to not accept cash at all, there should still be a choice.
One bonus is that I keep finding money on the streets in countries that love cash.
In what country are you forced to use loyalty cards?
I’ve never had a cashier tell me I couldn’t pay without a loyalty cars. Usually I ask them to swipe their card, which 80% of the time they do because they get free gas or whatever
Czechia. In many supermarkets “discounts” only apply when you have a card/app. Essentially the “discount” is normal price, otherwise you’ll pay nearly double.
And the cashier doesn’t swipe their own card if you ask them politely to do so?
I really doubt that.
Co worker went into a grocery store and asked for a loyalty card. They wanted him to fill out the form of information. He’s like can I just not? The person behind the counter couldn’t care less…they just handed him the plastic sheet of like ~5 cards (full size and several keychain sized). So my loyalty card is spilt with that many people and is tied to no one. So the data on that account is wild I’m sure. I don’t get the like 3 cents off gas but I wasn’t gonna use it for that anyway. I hate ‘loyalty card’ prices on everything…
I’m using fake names on all those things, but prices without loyalty are often insane. It’s basically an extra tourist tax.
They also usually tie loyalty cards to phone numbers. So tell them 555-555-5555. Chances are high that someone already registered a card to some bullshit phone number, and many people are using it simultaneously
In the US, I’ve started paying in cash to combat the aggressive tip buttons (your options are: 20%, 30%, 40%, or Other). With cash, I feel free to provide a reasonable tip for whatever service and they see it and appear appreciative, even if it’s not the 20% the little tip screen attempts to strong arm you into.
You can press “no” or “custom.”
Still less convenient.
Handling cash is less convenient than a couple taps.
Been thinking of trying this. Thing is nobody uses cash anymore around here (Nordics). In supermarkets I know for sure I can use cash, but restaurants, bars or small business it’s going to be hit and miss. I guess I’d have to endure the awkwardness of asking in every single place if they take cash or not
Businesses aren’t legally required to accept cash?
No, same in the UK. How could you force them to take cash if they don’t want to?
What if you only had cash?
Then you can’t buy anything
It’s a private contract between the business and the customer, you are supposed to ensure you have means to pay beforehand.
In the US cash is considered “legal tender for all debts” by law currently.
That’s changing though as some places won’t accept cash even still.
It’s the same in the UK but “legal tender” doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
When you buy something from a shop you’re technically offering to enter a contractual relationship for the purchase of said goods. If the shop agrees to your terms, including how you’d like to pay, then the contract is ratified. If they don’t accept your preferred method of payment then there is no contract of sale and there is no debt to be paid.
This is also why shops don’t have to honour pricing errors; when you bring the item to the checkout you’re technically just offering to buy it for the listed price and they can choose to reject your offer.
In the US, I’ve noticed several places, mostly restaurants that now charge a convenience fee for credit card transactions. Double bonus for cash. I’ve even started using checks again as they don’t have a fee.
That’s actually illegal in the UK, to charge a fee for card use. Just means everyone pays more in increased prices, although most people in the UK use card for everything so for the population as a whole its probably a money saver, if not a privacy saving policy.
Being able to use cash is a privilege, and we should not let governments take it from us, since then they can monitor and control everything money-related.
I regularly consider doing this. Obviously it is great from a privacy perspective. But I hate dealing with cash, especially change. With cards I just have one thing in my wallet and it just works forever. My bank account is automatically charged at the end of the month. With cash I need to keep refilling my wallet and carry around annoying change.
I would love to have something digital but also private (like Monero). But so far I have been picking convenience over privacy.
Yeah this is me.
I acknowledge the privacy issues but cash is way too inconvenient.
Change is easy to deal with. Just give it to the people begging.
This works in the US where change is worth very little but we have £1/£2 (or €1/€2) coins in EU which add up to a fair bit.
If it’s low-value change you won’t feel any worse giving it away. And if it’s so valuable to you then it must be valuable enough that you can buy something you want with it.
Now they have your fingerprints. Good job.
Just never go outside without leather gloves and a ski mask
Follow me for more excellent tips that definitely won’t make you look like a serial killer to everyone
Ski mask isn’t enough. You need to remove your face.
I only use cash at places that have a purchase portal as complicated as giving change. You want to hand me a tip machine on a stick without tap pay and select a tip amount on a tiny shitty touch screen? You can count my change, thanks. Hopefully we see some traction in public opinion regarding privacy soon. Until then banks are selling your data, but the infra is required to live a modern life.
I encourage cash spending at a small business I operate. Average sale is around $150, 10% discount for using cash. About 25% of people pay cash.
It’s very thinly veiled tax avoidance, but zero people have complained or called us out in it.
well nobody complains about having to pay less, and calling it out means they might lose the discount in the future and who would want that?
My bank recently got rid of their own contactless payment app and now I am forced to use Google pay. You have to accept Google’s privacy terms and they’ll have access to all your transactions. No thanks.
Beyond that I quite like using tech. Still waiting for bitcoin to take off after more than a decade. For budgeting you can use programs and it’ll notify you real time on your expenditures.
This decision was helped by moving to GrapheneOS and losing Google Pay, definitely. (And Degoogling for other reasons at the same time). If I have to carry a card I may as well carry cash, a few folded notes are the same footprint as a card and as I mentioned, I try not to break notes if I don’t have to, so I’m not carrying change often.
I’ve lived in Germany and cards are just not really a thing there. The only real thing I hated about it was that everyone was somehow incapable of just prepping their cash, so I’ve wasted countless hours waiting in line at banks.
The other thing I hated was during corona. I worked in a store and we had to handle all that cash 🤢
Other than that, the coins are quite annoying. They’re bulky and heavy. My trick was to just empty them out every time I came home into a bowl. Then once a year or so I’d get it turned into paper money.
I have a leather coin bag full of change that I swear I could bludgeon a person to death with because it just so rarely gets used.
It pulls down my pants if I bring it with me anywhere.I recently had it with me out recently and ended up paying the restaurant bill in exact change because of it and we were all amazed. They say it doesn’t happen really anymore.
I just can’t justify the like 8 bucks of paper money it would make me either.
I fantasize about getting it together enough to pull off what you are doing. Good for you — keep inspiring us.
I would consider paying with cash again IF $100 bills weren’t so much trouble.
It’s hard to get a $100 bill. ATMs just don’t spit them out. Many places refuse to take them. It’s just hard to carry over $100 in cash without quickly having your wallet explode in size.
Back in the day $100 was like caring $1,000 now. You could get a lot done with $20 bills… You can burn through the major of $100 just going to dinner and I also have no desire to manage all that cash at my house or hit up an ATM every other day.
Interesting, we have £50 notes in the UK but they essentially don’t exist for most people. No cash machines will give you one, and shopkeepers mistrust them, although generally accept. 20s are the highest people deal with here usually.
We also have 50s, they have the same problem as 100s.
There are definitely places that will take the 50s and 100s but the number of times you can get burned by it is too high for my liking. I once was on vacation and a state park (I think it was) wouldn’t take anything bigger than 20s for their admission fee.
I think I only had 50s so I think I ended up having a stranger help me out.
50€ notes are really common in Germany (and probably the rest of the euro zone), mistrust only starts at 100€ and above, most shops don’t accept 500€ anymore and 200€ also became quite rare
Yeah I do agree that American cash doesn’t stretch as far. I’m definitely having to hit the ATM or cash back option way more than before for how much things cost. 50s are good for restaurants and the like but 100s are so weirdly distrusted and a pain. But I rarely get back 5s and 10s cause seriously inflation is just so good damn high.
I keep thinking I’m gonna pull out a bunch of cash to have but then… Yeah I am not one to stuff it under my mattress and it being available electronically is so useful… Sigh…
Trying. It’s all we can do until things change for real.
