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 ?

The key word in that post is "too".

There are various legitimate reasons why a small business or workman might prefer to take cash, but it's undeniable that someone who doesn't want to pay income tax on their full earnings would also be incentivised to ask for cash.

Doesn't mean that the people who say they're doing it for legitimate reasons are lying. Doesn't mean that the worries about vulnerability of the banking system or potential state control (per China) are unfounded. It can be true simultaneously that cash use has upsides and downsides. It has benefits for many people but it does also make life easier for money launderers and tax avoiders.

if there were power cuts and no power for stores cash is the ONLY option other than barter.

If Braverman decides she wants to go full police state

I thought the decision had been made? We're in the implementation phase now. The implementation phase of a project where "what success looks like" is "White, tory male, middle class and definitely not foreign where 'foreign' includes Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland".

Stop being an arse in place of lack of argument.

Its not a conspiracy. It’s not good to put 100% trust in the government.

Because it's based on fundamental misunderstanding of how modern capitalist societies function, and on paranoid fantasies that the govt are out to get 'us' (usually due to their political views, most of which are [surprise surprise] rw and discriminatory/oppressive)
They haven't provided any real evidence, so why do I need to? Onus on them.

It’s not good to put 100% trust in the government.

There's no need for any sort of crystal ball.

The conspiracists are describing a future State that would have the means, and the legal capacity, to utterly destroy your life regardless of whether or not cash is still a thing, hence why cash is irrelevant, and hence why the paranoia about losing it is nonsensical.

Ad mulierem is not an argument, pots and kettles.

The argument is right there in the first para but you chose to ignore it. Unless you live off grid, you live within the system.

Fully agree - nail on the head.

We've had "home" computers for 43 years, ever since the first commercially affordable one was introduced, the sinclair ZX80 (there's a clue in the number - 1980!) closely followed by the ZX81 and then the Spectrum, (of which 5 million were sold). I'm pretty sure most people in the 1980s used either a home computer for playing games on their TVs or even those earlier "ping pong" tennis games for the TV, or similar.

I started work in a small office in 1983 - just 9 employees and the father/son owners, but we all had a computer on our desks - that's 40 years ago! Anyone working in an office environment in the mid-late 80s and certainly in the 90s would have had exposure to PCs!

My wages were paid into my bank account right from the first pay day, and I had debit and credit cards in regularly use that first month of working, as well as using ATM machines to draw out cash, cheque balances, etc. I'd go shopping and mostly pay by card in all the bigger/chain stores. Although, yes, smaller independents didn't tend to take cards back in the 80s, some did, many didn't. I remember having to get a M&S credit card because they didn't accept VISA/Access credit cards back then - they only accepted their own, but that soon changed!

Telephone banking started in the mid 1990's - around 30 years ago, roughly the same time as mobile phones. Smart phones became widely available 10-15 years ago.

Wake up and smell the coffee - the writing has been on the wall for 40 years. It's literally nothing new and the direction of travel has been blindingly obvious for four decades!

Today's 80 year olds were only 40 back in 1983, in the prime of their lives, presumably mostly working. They had ample opportunity to get on board with debit/credit cards, telephone/online banking, etc.

For every person who says it's too easy to tap tap tap, there's probably another who says that they prefer card, because they have a list of transactions instead of taking out a note, breaking it, and the rest evaporating so they've spent £20 on little bits of they don't know what.

This is it for me. I really benefit from having a record of exactly what I've spent. With cash, I am terrible at seeing the change from a note as basically nothing & if just .. vanishing.

I also appreciate the convenience of tapping, hugely. I have become over-reliant on it though - and have got caught out on occasion where it's cash-only (not where I live but where I'm on holidays at the moment).

I am buying my Sainsbury's giftcard on TopCashBack so get 5.85% cash back. I've been buying them for a few months and I've got £90 saved up which I will buy another gift card with at Christmas to pay for my food shop.

This month I'm going to buy a big enough giftcard to cover the month as I've only been doing £200 or £250 a month which isn't enough so my cash back should be building up nicely. I suppose I could put my money for casual spends on it rather than having that amount in cash.

I'll have to see how it goes. I guess I'm going to get a horrible shock when I discover why I never have any money at the end of the month.

That is SMART! I may copy you......

We still have a ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum and some Commodores (64/16 and something else.) Plenty of others to cover the following years.

I think I could open a computer museum and make some cash.

Our local soft play is requesting cash only now too. They pay a fee on card transactions though, the same as my small corner shop (though corner shop requests a minimum of £10 per transaction if you’re paying by card rather than requesting you to cashless).

If you go on TopCashBack there isn't actually a Sainsbury's card, you have to buy a YouChoose card and then go onto YouChoose and swap it for a Sainsbury's one. I started off only doing £50 or £100 a month but I'm pretty confident about it now so will be buying more. At first I was worried I'd spend hundreds and then YouChoose not change it.

If you aren't already on TopCashBack see if you have a friend who is as you can both get a bonus for her doing a referral. I got £30 for referring DD and she got £10 I think. I did give her the £30.

Agree.

I have a chase account I do the same with.

handy as it also gives 1% cash back and they do a round up account which saves the pennies which is an easy way of saving for Christmas without noticing.

works well for me as it keeps the available money separate from the bills etc

That's awesome. I wish I still had mine. I spent A LOT of time programming on my first ZX80, I even expanded it's memory and bought one of those thermal printers. Then got the ZX81, then the Spectrum as well as a Commodore 64. Heaven knows where they went, presumably lost in a house move or thrown away by parents. The thing is, though, the most memorable was the ZX80, especially before upgrading, when you just had that one screen of programming code and had to be ever more inventive to get as much programming out of so few lines of code. It really made you very efficient!

I do, though, still have one of the first "touchscreen" laptops which I bought around 1990? It was a Compaq that came with a stylus pen where you could "point and click" on screen and write your own handwriting using the stylus pen straight onto the screen. Every couple of years, I get it out, dust it down and have a quick play. Cost around £1k which was a lot of money back in 1990!

Card processing fees aren't particularly high.

Typical fees are 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards for UK consumer cards. Though some have a minimum fee of maybe 30p for smaller amounts.

Some businesses/organisations, though, don't shop around, so could find themselves paying a lot more, but that's their fault really - if you shop around, there are some very cheap options out there.

If you run a very small business, cash is often better. We used to run a small business. My DP would count the cash in front of the TV in the evening. We would pay the cleaner in cash and suppliers where possible. Then we would transfer the cash amount left over from personal account to business account, and spend the cash on day to day living expenses.
It saved a LOT of money on card payments and the only time we went to the bank was at Christmas as takings were higher.
Card payments are cheaper for larger businesses as they have to pay someone to add up and bank cash. But that isn't true for small businesses.

Hardly a conspiracy to be concerned about the wider implications of a cashless society.

Depends if the suppliers accept cash payments, which would depend on the type of business. Times have changed and van delivery drivers tend not to be allowed to accept cash anymore, so no more paying the bread/meat van every weekend like you could in the past. Some cash n carry's have stopped accepting cash. For small garages, the parts/tool vans that drive round every day don't accept cash anymore. One of my clients is a convenience store and they only pay anything out in cash maybe once every few weeks - bread, cakes, milk, sandwiches, meat, pies, greeting cards, etc from local small firms are paid by BACS, not cash, and they get the "store cupboard" groceries/cleaning products etc delivered from the local cash n carry whose drivers don't accept cash either. Staff are paid weekly by BACs straight into their bank accounts which they prefer.

And my favourite local restaurant only takes cash. It is always packed.
You can go to a chain that won't take cash. But you would be missing out in the city I live in.

Monzo costs £5 per month fee. Why would I pay that so I can pay a £3 parking fee once a month?

And cryptocurrency is a much easier way of tax avoidance than cash. There is a limit to cash you can handle for tax avoidance, that is why money laundering exists. But cryptocurrency is pretty unlimited.