Times I have needed cash this fortnight

[marymarkle]

I know there are some on here who say they never ever use cash. I don't know how they manage. Like most people I use a mixture of bards and cash.
So in the fortnight the times I have had to use cash are as follows.

Buying the Big Issue. I assume those who never use cash never buy the Big Issue.
Paying for drinks at a cash bar at a wedding. Very posh venue, but cash bar only, no cards.
Getting the bus into town. I live in a City where the buses only take cash or a bought bus card. I hardly ever use the bus, so no point buying a bus pass, so I used cash. You can not use a card.
Went to a local vintage fair today. This is a small fair and the best stalls are always some people who do this as a hobby/to make a bit of extra money, and none of them take cards. I assume because of the cost of taking cards.
Paid a tip by cash in a restaurant. I always pay tips in cash so servers get the whole amount. Even the best places take an admin fee.

By refusing to use cash I would have negatively affected my life this fortnight and not supported someone who is homeless.

Mobile hairdresser and school snack money are the only things I've needed cash for recently.

I still use cash loads. Over the last week I’ve had

Straw delivery - cash on delivery
Hay delivery - cash on delivery
Something I bought from FB selling site
DD2’s riding lesson
DD1’s maths tutor
Farrier

All the above will only take cash

Colleague went out at lunch time, she got me a sandwich, I pad her
Parking - I can pay via an ap but phone reception is pretty shit so it’s hit and miss as to whether it works, plus it costs extra

I find it easier to keep track of spending when I have cash - I get a set amount out each week, stick it in a tin and jot down what I use it for.

I use cash quite often. I think it’s important for teaching children the value of money from a young age and helps with mental maths also the very elderly find it easier, so I have always have resisted an only card culture.
Cash this past week -
Cleaners twice
Coffee at station twice
Sandwich at office once
Chinese takeaway that doesn’t have card reader
Big Issue
Village stores for bread and local newspaper
Log boy
To put in a card as a present to God child
Car parking - I keep change in the car as easier to submit receipt than text for expenses.
Taxis from station to office
Donation to staff collection

I live in London and had to use cash for an Alexandra Palace shuttle bus at the weekend. Could have used contactless on a normal bus but the shuttle was better!

I use cash to pay for DS's swimming lesson, my hairdresser who is self employed and only takes cash, for fundraising at DS's school and occasionally if I need something from the corner shop near work (no card facilities). So I only tend to carry a tenner around and I just withdraw the cash before having my hair done.

Everywhere else round here takes card including the buses.

I don't like carrying a lot of cash as I'm paranoid about losing it.

Cutting down on cash useage would also go some way to eliminating benefit fraud and the NRPs who decide to go self-employed to avoid paying maintenance.

Only "some way" though. There are lots of benefit fraud, tax evasion and maintenance avoidance by people who don't rely on cash too! In fact, cash based avoidance is probably very small scale in the big scheme of things. Getting rid of cash would have minimal effect overall.

I've been involved in numerous tax enquiries over my 35 years as an accountant. Cash-based evasion has been a very small part of that. Most of the tax evasion cases I've seen have been far more sophisticated, and I'm not talking about multi millionaires, I'm talking about your typical neighbour, friend or relative.

How many people pay their rent in cash these days? Not many, yet according to HMRC figures (and my personal experience), one of the biggest areas of tax evasion is failing to report and pay tax on buy to let rental income, the vast majority of which is paid directly into the landlord's bank account!

The biggest tax evasion case I was involved in, with the guy being sent to prison for it, was a small local carpet shop, who operated 2 sets of books. One declared, the other not. Very little of his income was cash - not many people pay a few hundred pounds in cash for a carpet - it was mostly cheques and cards. He had a second limited company registered in Isle of Man which was invisible to the UK tax authorities - very similar name, so he could choose whether he paid a customer cheque into his legitimate UK bank account or post it to his IOM bank account. The tax evaded amounted to a few hundred thousand pounds over about a decade. The ironic thing was that he always made sure he had "bomb proof" records of his cash takings, and did perfect reconciliations of cash in balances to cash payments and cash banked as he thought that it was his cash transactions where HMRC inspectors would concentrate if he was ever investigated!

Car park
Stay and play
Messy play
Holiday fund in one of those money banks you have to break to get into

I buy everything in a shop with cash. I take out £150 for food shop and petrol and £20 for toddler groups etc. Don't spend money on anything else regularly. If something else needs buying I go and get cash out.
I hate using card.

OP, I’m still chuckling at your original statement that you use a mixture of “bards and cash”!
How did you persuade these poets to pay for your shopping, and where can I get one?!

Yes sorry I read your latest post and you just cant understand how people manage without cash. It cant be true.

Well I dont really use cash much, if you asked me I would say I dont use cash but I must do sometimes now that you mention it. so you are right.

I am like the vegan who eats honey sometimes. I have Men in Blacked it.

I am saying I don't know how anyone manages without any cash. Unless they do nothing except pay for food shopping and bills.

Saying this does sort of imply that cash is best and anyone not needing it is boring, although that might not be what you intended.

In the last fortnight, I've spent £3 in cash, for playgroup. Otherwise everything has been card, including swimming, eating out (not a tipping place), Lego Discovery.

We went away for a long weekend early January to somewhere really rural and took out £150 (been caught out before!) but everywhere we went had card payments, so we came home with most of the money.

There are ways to do it which require permanent connectivity. There are ways to do it that only require intermittent connectivity. There are ways to do it that only require connectivity at the garage.

All of which is out of my hands as a mere bus user. It's up to the bus company to do all of that should they feel it necessary - probably at some time in the future they will. In the meantime, I need to use cash if I want to use the bus - paying for 5 days separately is cheaper than buying a 7 day weekly bus pass which is the only alternative.

babdoc You are so behind the times. Poets are the way to go.

Meant to add, that playgroup has ordered one of those Square payment devices, so even they won't need cash soon!

i prefer cards as they help me keep an eye on my money, i have a spreadsheet, and the card payment shows on my bank statement

Boris No I am not implying cash is better. I use cards most of the time. My whole post is about those who say they never use cash. And as I said, I don't see how that is possible, especially if you have kids.

I live near a large town so plenty of acccess to cashmachines I feel necessary but the only time I really seem to need cash is for some after school activities for the dc.
Ironically I just had to stop in the middle of this post to go and pay the wheelie bin cleaning man IN CASH, although they do take over the phone payments as well.
I usually have a minimum £10 in my purse but that’s all

I used cash this week because my wallet was stolen. Thank goodness I had some cash at home (DH's birthday money ) else I wouldn't have been able to buy any food! It took 5 days for them to re-issue my cards. Definitely going to rethink my never having cash around to having enough for the bus and a basic food shop.

Alert When my friends card stopped working, she had to go into the bank branch to get cash out with a load of ID. Took 5 days to get a new card.

My ID was in my wallet...

Oh no! That is shit.

-charity giving through direct debit
-milkman/window cleaner/dog walker all take online payments
-buses and taxis take card here
-pleasantly surprised that the meter at the hospital car park was card online when I went last week
-even small farmers market stalls seem to take card now

I'll give you the tip one, prefer to give cash here. Also have to withdraw cash at work and immediately load it to a prepaid swipe. Apart from that it's not needed for me

DW and I carry a £10 note each and that's it. Which, hilariously isn't "cash" enough if change is needed ..

The only thing we use cash for is to pay the takeaway delivery. We used to use "JustEat" but they managed to bollox the online menu up so we found it easy to ring and order and pay cash.

There's a pot of coins in the car for the "historic experience" car parks, but we've not used that for longer than I can remember. We either pay by app, or using a card at the machine.

Don't get me started on cheques ....

I buy quite a bit from market stalls and some don't take cards. This means I use cash at the others sometimes even though they take cards. The greengrocer in town doesn't take cards either.

The haberdashery shop takes cards over £5 so if I'm buying a zip or 10 buttons I use cash.
Ditto the chemist so if I want one packet of cough sweets or a bar of the nice plastic free soap they sell, I use cash.

I paid for my library reservations with cash in the last fortnight (I imagine they can take cards but it's 75p).
The DCs put money in the plate at church in cash but we pay our main donation by standing order.

I can now pay my bus fare by card or using Android Pay on my phone. Woohoo!

More stupid. And some other words that DH said when I told him. But yes, it made me question my reliance on cards/technology. As did the profound relief that for once my phone was in my pocket and not with my wallet!