When was the last time you used Cash?

[bbforpp]

1 month ago

Not for a while but I will tomorrow to pay for beauty treatments. Only because it's discounted for cash otherwise I'd pay on the card.

Today. Sometimes it'll be not for a couple of weeks, sometimes it's multiple times a week. It's harder to get cash out then it used to be, more card only registers in supermarkets, less ATMs around, so I tend to naturally have cash less often. I tend to budget better if I deal in cash. I don't want society to become cash less.

Three times in the last fortnight when DH has tried to pay by card the business has had no/poor signal and asked customers to pay by cash.

One was a restaurant in Yorkshire, one a restaurant in London and one a shop in Lincolnshire. As we always have cash on us it wasn't a problem but for some people it was. Difficult in a restaurant when you have already eaten the food!

I use cash weekly, several times a week - there are plenty of shops around here that only take cash. The local chippy for example - of which I am a regular customer!

last time I used cash was yesterday - in fact that was the last time I used money. I have not used cash today, but I have not got up yet!

About half an hour ago.

I hate that generations of people will grow up just tapping cards at machines without really understanding money/change/budgeting.

But the assumption there is that cash is required for all that.

Change, for example, is only a relevant concept if you think of cash as the default. It’s not actually important in itself.

Differences in price, value for money, or budgeting aren’t necessarily attached to or better supported by cash.

for lots of the people growing up cashless, they’re doing so with bank accounts that enable them to set budgets and lots, tag spending so they can carefully review by category/date/etc, and lots of other things that may teach budgeting far better than having to carry around pocketfuls of 5p coins.

My teenage daughter has SN’s and goes out each week with a carer, I give the carer cash to pay for lunch/cake/bus fair, without cash it would be really tricky as I would have to transfer money. Also using cash is something that benefits my dd as she doesn’t really understand online banking and can’t navigate banking apps,it’s easier for her to use cash to work out what she can buy when out with her carer.

so we use cash every week, sometimes several times,

This morning to buy eggs from a farmgate stall just up the road from me. I live in the 1950s.

A couple of days ago when I was out shopping, and I will use cash this morning for my PAYG Zumba class.

I am really against this insidious forcing onto everyone of a cashless society. Not everyone wants to just use a card or their phones/online banking.

I use it every week to pay the milkman. Other than that, it was on Monday when I bought my daughter a lollipop from the corner shop after Rainbows. Not gonna use card for one chupa chups!

Yesterday.

I have to use cash to give a pound to my year 7 every school day for break snack as the vending machine doesn't accept card payments. I got some cash out the other day to give 20 quid to other son as he needed cash at the airport for a snack when going on a school trip (he could have used his card but they asked for cash). I get cash out every couple of months to pay the car wash people as they only take cash, as card payments obviously impede their money laundering operation. Other than that, I don't use cash and haven't done for years. I'd be happy if all of above switched to card/phone payments. I have nothing to hide so I don't care about anonymity.

5p to cross a toll bridge last March. I do carry a little cash in case, but I always use my card, it's just much more convenient to me than cash.

I'm on holiday in Europe. Cash is very much king here still. That depends where in Europe you are. I'm just back from a week in Menorca, and didn't use cash anywhere. I took a 20 Euro note with me just in case, but it came back intact.

Same, I do use card but prefer using cash sometimes.

Paying my subs for choir the other night. The only time I pay anything in cash. Drives me mad making sure I have the physical cash

Yesterday

I have nothing to hide so I don't care about anonymity.

This is not an argument. Do you not care about privacy in any other area of life? You'd happily undress and go to the toilet in full view, because you have no time for privacy? Why does wanting privacy imply wrongdoing to you?

Let's say all transactions are tracked and directly attributable to you. Will it still be fine if pricing is personalised on the basis of your spending habits? If you can afford to shop at Waitrose rather than Lidl, let's raise all your prices elsewhere by 2 percent, since you can clearly afford it? The other way around, but there was already a case reported in the US where a man had a credit card withdrawn or the limit decreased, not because of failing to repay or changes to his income, but simply because the bank classified shops he was shopping at as 'shops for poor people'. Is that fine? Is it fine to have a social credit system where making certain purchases gets you additional positive points or negative points?

Our 40 min round trip is to the supermarket where the cash point is! No banks left here, It’s a 1.5hr round trip to a bank branch.

My local pub only takes cash. Ditto the chip shop. Otherwise I don't need it. I try to remember to bring a 20 for emergency and some change for charity etc though

Exactly. And how about showing some solidarity with those not given the privilege of being free not to care about pervasive surveillance and tracking their private lives? Such as disabled people?

I buy eggs from people who sell them from their houses so they only take cash. I buy most of my veg from a local grower who sells from his land. He only takes cash.

I don't need to show solidarity with anyone. Not using cash doesn't bother or inconvenience me. Other people's setups are their's to manage and they are free to keep using cash. I'm not advocating for cash to disappear or be phased out, and I don't think it should be as plenty stil.prefer it, I personally just don't care about it.

And anyone who likes cash because of digital privacy concerns, please tell me you don't use a smartphone then? If not, fair enough, it's that important to you. It isn't to me.

I do, but I'd rather not have a smartphone. I got one in 2019 because I was going to China and I was advised that it would be necessary for me there (in practice, not really, because WeChat wouldn't activate fully for me!).

I do basically nothing on the smartphone except use it as an alarm and occasional means of communication, and to use Revolut to convert money on trips abroad because their website doesn't allow you to make use of basic functions (yes, I then withdraw money from an ATM there). I frequently leave my phone at home.

The problem is that you're portraying this as an absolute. Privacy, like many things, is an ideal. We are sometimes forced for reasons of functioning in society or work, to accept making use of systems and sharing information that we'd rather not. It doesn't make sense to be "well, I have to use this bad-for-privacy thing for reason X, let's abandon privacy altogether" any more than it makes sense to be like "oh, I got overcharged here and can't get the money back, I'm now going to go around throwing money on the street".

Then you're deluded I'm afraid. You're already fully traceable and trackable. I work in cybersecurity and that genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back. UK police can see my logins onto the dark web, even though I am using tor and supposedly anonymous browsing, I was shown a demo of it the other day. That's why I can flippantly say I no longer care about didgitization of currency. Because I know that ship has sailed and it's totally pointless.

I'd rather concentrate my efforts on protecting myself and my customers from hacks and cyber attacks and data exfiltration in the actual digital world we live in. Use cash to pay for everything if it makes you feel better about your privacy, but it's already an illusion unless you live off grid and don't interact with the world electronically in any way. I've had my personal info leaked so many times in so many cyber attacks now - child benefits database, Capita, British Airways plus hundreds and hundred you don't hear about on a weekly basis. Are you going to not claim benefits? Not pay tax? Not fly? My personal details and bank accounts are already out there, so are yours. Hence why I don't really care anynore about trying to stop it. It's about remediation and protecton and making sure you don't suffer any personal consequence from the many invasions of your privacy happening on a daily basis, which I haven't, to date.