How important is it to have some cash in the house these days?

[AugustSeptemberOctober]

Boring post sorry.

I've always kept £100 cash in the house for emergencies. I had to spend most of it yesterday and now I'm wondering if I should bother replacing it, as it seems that cash is almost being phased out these days. Even tradespeople usually carry a card machine now.

To be honest, it's more that Christmas is coming up and I could do without withdrawing money from my account! But I feel a bit nervous about not having an emergency pot. Maybe I could just keep it to £40 or £50. What do other people do?

I never keep cash in the house or in my purse, as I can hardly think of anything I would need it for! The 2 things I do use it for are the collections in church, and occasionally the launderette if we have a tonne of stuff to dry and the weather is bad. Church I just take a fiver out of the cash machine on my way there, and the launderette I only go about once a month but I'll take a tenner out while I'm in the shop, and buy a magazine to get change. Literally everything else can be done electronically. Can add tip to Deliveroo etc fee before completing order, pay window cleaner by bank transfer, can use contactless card on buses / in taxis if needed (not that we use either very often). Even birthday money for family, I tend to just put it in their bank accounts. So no cash kept here, unless you count the charity box that I use to save up coppers and then pass on to a local charity quarterly.

I’ve got a fair bit of cash in the house tbh
I don’t spend it so readily so just take it out
Somewhere safe locked away though

I pay my gardener and window cleaner by bank transfer.
I have a small change purse for coins.. Parking fees etc

I always have £20 at home in case I ever need to get a taxi quickly. I've never needed to but it's saved DH a few times. Last year he broke his knee when I was at work and used it for a taxi to A&E. He's the type that doesn't make a drama so I'm sure he would have waited for hours until I got home before asking me to take him if we didn't have cash.

I have £2.40 in the kitchen in case the ice cream man comes.
DD has £3 in her blazer pocket in case she needs any supplies from the school office.
There's £2.50 on the side for DS's boxing tomorrow and he needed £1 this morning for non uniform. I might have about 30p in my purse.
DH used to have a wad of notes in his wallet at all times when we first met and I always found it so strange.
I like the idea of emergency cash...it just gets spent

Really surprised at the answers. I wouldn't tell anyone this in RL, so I have I haven't been made, but seeing as it doesn't make anything in the bank, I keep a few thousand in a very secure safe. I don't know whether I'm paranoidly awaiting World War Z or something, but I feel safe knowing I'm not relying on having to go to a bank in an emergency. DH laughs and calls it my running away money. Apart from my preparation for Zombie Apocalypse , I keep load of £1 coins in the car for parking and dinner money, a jar of £1 coins by the front door for takeaway driver tips, and a couple of hundred in my purse.

Just to add, I imagine the difference between those keeping a bit of cash in and those nothing is due to where you live. If you are rural, dipping in and out of Internet coverage, then you learn not to rely on cards / Google Pay / Apple Pay.

Am I the only one? I pay my window cleaner by cheque I never know when he is going to come and ask for money it might be after 3 window cleans. And all of you who keep £20 for a taxi, the last time I had to get a taxi back from A&E it was over £50 for about 8 miles.

I have a decent stash of £1 coins now (about £80, changed up a load of notes at the pier on a seaside holiday). Always need them for gym locker, toddler rides, charity days etc. I keep about £100-200 in cash on me, for emergencies (rarely use it). At home I have a few thousand right now, mainly because cash is the easiest way for a relative to pay me back, and I just keep it in a box until I get around to paying it into the bank. But it's just at home because I haven't got around to going to the bank. I use a debit card mostly when I'm out (live in London), I don't use my phone for payments as it doesn't feel secure.

I pay the window cleaner by bank transfer using my banking phone app, he puts a note through the door when hes's done them, so I know he's been.

@elephantoverthehill

Am I the only one? I pay my window cleaner by cheque I never know when he is going to come and ask for money it might be after 3 window cleans. And all of you who keep £20 for a taxi, the last time I had to get a taxi back from A&E it was over £50 for about 8 miles.

I don’t even have a chequebook and would have to Google how to write a cheque. Thought people stopped accepting them about 15 years ago!

Have usually kept £100-200 in the house for emergencies, taxis etc.

For a while had been thinking the same as you and took it down to about £60-70 during the summer.

Couple of weeks ago had to get a quick repair on the outside lighting. Cost turned out to be £75. The payment options were cash or bank transfer.

Doing the bank transfer was a bit of a faff and I wished I’d just had cash. So went and got some out to top it back up to £200.

The last time I'd taken cash out the bank was in March 2020. Then everyone started being funny about taking cash so I paid for everything by card.

I always had a £5 on the back of my phone for emergencies. Twice this year I've used it for buying ice creams from ice cream vans because they only took cash. Now I have no cash, except for a few coins and a £20 in my son's moneybox, which is an old £20 so I need to work out what to do with it.

Agree bank transfer can be a right faff, especially if you bank with Nationwide and they force you to use the card reader to set up a new payee even though you've used two factor authentication to log in.

Just for context, I do the book-keeping for a couple of shops. For one, 21% of their takings are in cash, for the other it's 31%. So, plenty of people are still using cash in shops. I think it'll be a good few years before cash dies out completely, if ever.

I pay the window cleaner by cash because he's already set up but had the gas boiler serviced a week or so ago and the service guy still takes cheques.

I keep enough to pay for a taxi to the nearest A&E department and one back. Probably a bit pointless considering I can pay with my phone or by card, but knowing my luck my phone would be out of battery, I wouldn't get chance to charge it in the hospital, and I would have to come home at 3am or something with no phone, and discover that my bank had put a hold on my card for no apparent reason (it's happened twice to me in the last decade so I just don't trust it now although I know that's a long time). Basically cash covers all the basis.

I haven’t yet quite divorced myself from cash. ‘Just in case’. Eg if taxi needed in emergency and my card didn’t work (double layered ‘in case’ there). Or I lost my cards. Also shop every now and then For vulnerable neighbour who gives me cash kitty for it. Also like pounds/2 pounds for tips and smaller notes for Christmas boxes.
During the pre lockdown panic/shock I found around 200 dollars and was reassured. God knows what I thought was going to happen to require them !?

Yes, I keep £200 cash in the house as emergency, get the fuck out of dodge, money.

I haven't really used cash in about 2 years!

I get annoyed at having to find a £1 coin for the supermarket trolley... usually have to get out a tenner and buy a small item just to get the £1 change before my shop.
Wish they'd do away with it!

We never have cash in the house, ever. Pay window cleaner by card. Local shops all card payments. Can’t remember the last time I paid for anything in cash.

I could rustle up about 8 quid in sterling if I upturned the sofa and emptied the car out. I do have 18 euros and a dollar in the back of my sock drawer for zombie apocalypse emergency barter power...

@NicLondon1

I haven't really used cash in about 2 years! I get annoyed at having to find a £1 coin for the supermarket trolley... usually have to get out a tenner and buy a small item just to get the £1 change before my shop. Wish they'd do away with it!

You can use the rounded end of a key in the coin slot of a trolley, saved myself a fortune in stupid 10 quid withdrawals for change since I worked this out!

I need cash for the chippy van and the local Chinese restaurant as they only take cash.

Ever since I got completely stuffed when my bank's system went down and I couldn't use my card I always like to have some cash on me.

I have emergency cash - anywhere from about £20 up to £100 - in the back of a carriage clock on the mantel piece.

I've just realised that makes me sound like my grandmother.

We don't have any, though DH normally has a couple of carefully folded £5 notes secreted in his wallet.

DS has a savings box that he puts his tips in, so I could always raid that if I was desperate. Can't truthfully remember the last time I would have needed to though.

With ApplePay and my loyalty cards stored on my phone, I rarely even take a purse out now. The exception is the nice young Polish men who valet my car. Their card machine always seems to be inexplicably out of order, necessitating the need for cash payments and a subsequent trip to the cash point