Sainsburys checkout lady said that “lots of people are switching back to cash just now”

[Harpings]

I know it’s just one checkout person. But is this something others have noticed/ are doing? Just wondering if so and why it would be ?

I’m no conspiracist but mainly use cash. Isn’t it important to have cash so that all spending isn’t tracked by the banks? Visa and Mastercard have a near total monopoly on the way we spend. Cash is the only way to not channel your spending through these two firms. They currently charge a fee for use of their service and control how much this is.

The point is cash is government issued. Digital currency is issued by banks, and thereby controlled by them.

Cash has been called the carthorse of society, but Brett Scott has done some work and calls it our bicycle. Perhaps cars are quicker, you may feel safer in one than on a bike, but bicycles offer freedom, independence and are totally egalitarian. Same with cash. Especially for lower-income women. We can track our spending and control how we manage our households.

What is daft about that?

My mum is elderly. Was an early adopter of computers and smart phones. She struggles now though. Ageing often brings issues. Wait till you get there and you will understand.

I find it much easier to track my own spending when I pay by card though. The transactions are all there for me to see, in date order. I can see what I spent, where, and when. If I pay with cash, that information isn’t easily accessible to me. I have to keep receipts and log it on to a spreadsheet to have that same info.
I don’t think cash should disappear entirely, it has its uses. But for me, paying by card is far easier, and gives me a greater level of oversight. So I’m not going to use cash because other people prefer it.

It was simplistic nonsense!

Re tipping, I always ask the serving staff if I can add a tip on the card machine and if it will actually go to the staff.

I agree that we still need both card and card/phone payments. There is no one size fits all, and being too reliant on technology can have its downsides. I suspect those who never have to use cash only live in and visit areas with good internet connection.

I use my card 99.9% of the time but have a couple of bank notes tucked into my phone case as well.

Who do you think made it this way? Banks!

They’ve closed down options for depositing cash so that cashless options become more appealing.

There are some people coming from the financial world really warning about the dangers of total bank monopoly on our spending.

I completely disagree.

I budget with a spreadsheet and use my card 99.9% of the time. It's really easy to do, and I know to the penny what I have left.

I have a monzo account and definitely don't pay anything for it.

I use it to budget in the same way people do by having cash.

Personally I much prefer it as I don't want to end up carrying (and losing) change around, it's a lot more efficient.

It's hardly a conspiracy the government do want a cashless society and they would prefer to have knowledge about what people are spending money on.

I don't trust what MN says anyway.
Before the pandemic the view was pushed that most people did grocery shopping online. Then pandemic revealed that only 6% of people regularly bought groceries online, so a minority.
It will be the same with those who say they never use cash, a minority.
And on these threads people always offer multiple accounts that can do what cash can do. Why should we bother? We can just use cash.

Yes. Agree.

Small charities can pay a lot to accept donations by machine.
Street donations for charities and in pubs etc are way down.

I budget with a spreadsheet and use my card 99.9% of the time. It's really easy to do, and I know to the penny what I have left.

I can see both sides to thi.
Updating a spreadsheet takes a lot more effort than just opening your purse and checking the contents. People don't always want to know what they have spent their money on, but just how much they have left.

At a festival last week one of the stall holders was saying that at the last venue they were at the cash only bars couldn't serve anyone.
I think it's important to keep cash so I try to use it as much as I can.
I'll especially use it when you get to pay a human if you pay cash but have to use self serve if using a card.

Problem is that if you are a racist bigot and don't use cash, you may wake up one day to find you can't access your bank account any more. All those 'tell it like it is' people will soon be bleeding the cash points dry to stuff wads under their mattresses.

My dad always hated cashless options and I remember my brothers taking the piss out of his concern that he wouldn’t be able to spend cash any more, I thought it was funny because I thought they were right and he was being paranoid that his cash wouldn’t be an option, I just thought more digital payment availability was a good thing for more options. Reading this thread and some of the irritation directed at people who want to spend their own money in the form they choose maybe he was right.

@ursula do you really track every tiny spend on your Card. A pint of milk, a bus far, etc. I make lots of tiny purchases some days.
What I need to know is that the amount allocated to food is not overspent that week. Much easier to do by cash.

Definitely for budgeting. I am far away from any money worries, but I have gone to paying everything with credit card so I can see at the end of the month what I actually spend. It's hard to keep track if everything is coming out of the main account.

I’ve seen a few people use those budgeting folders with the individual labelled wallets you put cash in

It could be that

And if you add a tip by card, nearly everywhere deducts an admin charge. If you leave the cash it all goes to the staff.

We each contribute to the future of our civilisation through the incremental choices we make. If cash is only used by poor snd vulnerable people governments and businesses will cease to support it and transactions will become entirely electronic. For women in domestic violence situations this poses a real threat. There have been examples in India of widows starving to death after their rice allowance moved from paper to digital certification and computer glitches denied them their rations. So it isn’t just ‘conspiracy theorists’ who are concerned about the demise of cash.

This thread demonstrates there needs to be choice so that people can make their own decisions about how they spend. I'm not advocating cards be removed, that's what some people prefer. I make big purchases on a card too, particularly to get S75 protection. I am just so annoyed about the move towards cashless like that's an inevitable future we all prefer and all buy into.

I read a sign in a shop the other day that they only take card payments as it is 'cleaner' - and I pulled them up on it. Some of us rely on cash, and to insinuate it's dirty/unclean/can't be taxed/criminal is just appalling.

I live in central London, huge numbers of businesses are going cashless. I always complain and usually leave. When I bought a pumpkin the other day at my local newsagent and paid in cash the man said 'thank you for paying cash, you're a good woman.'

In some countries legislation is being brought in to ensure businesses have to accept cash. If that were to be the case in the UK there would need to be better infrastructure for cash depositing as this has largely been decimated by current banking policy, but I would personally back this. We need payment choice!

@noword most people do not keep spreadsheets of personal spending.

Same applies with cash. My MIL is developing dementia and has lost all sense with cash usage. She's not got a clue. Will happily try handing over a £20 note for a bottle of milk when she's got change and smaller notes in her purse. Then tries to pay her weekly paper bill with a 50p piece! Looking at her bank statements, she regularly drew out large amounts of cash from the bank but there's nothing to show for it - she can't remember drawing it out, barely spends anything other than going to the local shop, and we've not found any piles of cash in her house. Heaven only knows where it went.

We rationalised her banking and have got her a simple bank account with debit card for her "spending money". She's got different accounts for where her pensions are paid in and her regular direct debits are paid out of, and a couple of longer term savings/investment accounts, so she has no need at all now to think about paying bills etc - it's all sorted automatically so she can forget about it instead of obsessing about going to the post office to pay her leccy! We set up a standing order for a small amount to be transferred weekly into her "debit card account" for spending money. After a lot of coaxing etc., she's finally got into the habit of using her debit card when she goes to the local shops, and we've set up the app on OH's phone so he gets a "ping" when she spends something on it, so we can see what she's spending and a list of where she's been and he can put a hold on it immediately via the app if it got lost or stolen.

She's now basically forgotten about cash and that's a good thing. She's not burning through lots of cash withdrawals anymore with nothing to show for it.