To wonder why so many people don't carry any cash on them?

[InHibernationTilISummer]

Excluding people who are skint and the Queen, obviously.

I've had so many examples of this in the last few weeks:

• Colleague who came into the work in the bad weather. Lots of delays and problems on the bus route they normally get so wanted to get the train instead but had no money for a ticket because they had come in with their season bus pass and lunch and hadn't expected to be spending any money.
• Friend turning up for exercise class but hasn't realised that the price has gone up 50p since she last came - and she only brought the exact money she thought she would need.
• Another friend dropping older child off at sport class finds that there's a fair going on at the sports centre with stalls and activities that her younger child (who was with her) would have enjoyed. Complains that she wishes she had known about it in advance as she would have taken some money out with her.

Is this becoming more common or is it just the people I know? If you aren't skint but don't routinely carry money on you, why is that?

I've been in situations where I haven't expected to be spending any (or much) money and some problem has occurred or plans have changed for some reason (e.g. having to accompany someone to A & E or the last bus not turning up) and I would have been really stuck if I hadn't taken some spare 'emergency' cash.

I've also never been for a meal out as a group where people have paid by phone etc. Occasionally one person has had to pay by card as they haven't had cash on them, but then we give them the cash and they pay the whole bill with their card?

Again, we live outskirts of London, work in London and I'm 30 something.

*Today 13:30 crunchymint

Any piano teacher I have ever known makes a living from it.*

You have a very unusual way of getting your point across crunchy, like you seem to believe that your opinion and experience is the universal one, so that's that. You don't seem to add qualifiers like 'in my experience...' just make blanket statements as if that means anything to others.

Just because the piano teachers you've met all did it for a full time living doesn't mean all piano teachers in the world do

By the time we’ve gone cashless, say twenty or thirty years time for example

I don't think it will be that long when you consider all buses in London are now cashless. Cashless Waitrose supermarket also.

It didn't take Sweden and Canada that long really once they started.

Neither Canada nor Sweden is cashless.

Neither Canada nor Sweden is cashless.

They are 99% cashless, mainly tourists paying pash in the few places that still accept cash. 75% of their banks don't accept cash.

pash should read cash.

Actually they aren't.
the Riksbank says that “an entirely cashless society is still a long way off”. 80% of all transactions in Sweden are cashless. 99% of people have made cashless payments.

Actually they aren't.
the Riksbank says that “an entirely cashless society is still a long way off”. 80% of all transactions in Sweden are cashless. 99% of people have made cashless payments

That s transactions, value 99% is done electronically. Even church collections are done via mobile pay.

I should have also added that the 1% includes people trying to launder money. They are the real losers in an almost cashless society.

I don't believe cash will ever fully disappear in my life time but it will be mainly redundant I think in the next 10 years.

I haven't been for a meal with anyone paying cash in I can't remember how long

Bill comes and we just split the bill equally- the card machine will split the amount for each person : if tip is included then the waiter will just ask if you want to use contactless and tap your card for you, if it's not included then each person can add tip on to their bill. You just press 'yes I would like to add a gratuity' on the card machine and punch in the amount before inputting your pin

Then again I've not been for a meal in ages where we haven't just split it equally, I haven't paid for what I've eaten. If I'm not drinking and it's a boozey meal then the group just has the drink on a separate bill, and those who are drinking split that one between themselves.

That s transactions, value 99% is done electronically. Even church collections are done via mobile pay

That's not the same thing as 99% cashless. I very much doubt all church collections are done via mobile pay!

But there’s a downside, since many people, in particular the elderly, don’t have access to the digital society

fortune.com/2018/02/19/sweden-cashless
www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-20/swedish-authorities-fear-negative-spiral-society-goes-cashless-too-fast

"the card machine will split the amount for each person"

In a lot of places I have eaten in the restaurant won't do this. We ate out a couple of weeks ago and paid our part of the bill in cash to the person who organised it and they paid by card. I always take cash for this kind of situation. When it is just us we always pay by card.

Our Waitrose is full of people dithering around in their purses, and counting out money at the checkouts. I don't think that will become cashless yet, there are some automated tills that are card only but not many people use them. I imagine the Waitrose which is cashless is one of the smaller ones, ours is a very large one.

^That s transactions, value 99% is done electronically. Even church collections are done via mobile pay.

99% electronically by value is not the same as 99% of transactions.

Many of the 1%, as well as being money launderers and people dodging taxes, will be small transactions where many people prefer to use cash and will be more than 1% of transactions, by volume.

A restaurant might take separate card payments if everyone is paying the same, but not if people are paying different amounts.

Restaurant bills within a group can be very different and not everyone wants to, or even can afford to, split evenly.

It's all very well saying that paying for everything by card gives you more information about what you are spending your money on, but equally, if you're just tapping here, there and everywhere, there seems to be an awful lot of scope to spend more than you intended, in the same of 'convenience', such as the extra charges added by small shops and parking meters (while illegal, there's a lot of places that still do it) and splitting a restaurant meal equally when your own consumption was very small, because no-one has any cash and the restaurant won't take £10 from person one and £40 from person 2.

It makes sense that 99% value is done by card, Nobody buys cars or furniture by cash, or pays bill by cash. Most of my expenditure is on cards or DD. But I still spend cash most days.
So today spent cash on bus fare, pound shop and Iceland. Value overall was only about £16. Tomorrow we are going out for a meal, and will pay by card. Value probably about £60 - its a pub place. And will be topping up petrol - value about £50, plus 1 night in hotel - value £80. Same number of transactions by cash and card, but card ones are much much larger in value.

That's more or less the same as my spending habits crunchymint.

I do see people in supermarkets paying for shopping with multiple £20 notes and often wonder why they don't use a card.

Your bottom link says it's not a safe link to open so I've not read that.
Your top link is just surmising and rewording the banking review which is looking in to banking laws.

You can find negatives in everything if you want to (Even water), the reality is that most elderly people possess and use debit cards already in the UK.

My 80 year old MIL uses her DC all the time when we are out together, so I have no worries about her.

As for the comment on churches they offer swift mobile pay as it is shown to get higher donations. The church of England is also trialling contactless donations and going to roll out to all churches if successful.

I never stated that all donations are via mobile.

To go back to the thread title it is why we chose not to use cash. As I've said I find no need to and see many benefits to not using it.

You can find negatives in everything if you want to (Even water), the reality is that most elderly people possess and use debit cards already in the UK

Well Sweden is launching a review and the concern is about disenfranchising vulnerable members of society, so I don't think it's about finding negatives where there are none.

The difficulty is when people get to an age when they can no longer remember pin numbers. I have seen elderly people take out written pieces of paper from their purse with their pin number on it as they can no longer remember it.
And of course most elderly people have debit cards. They need them to get their state pension.

And some elderly people are like my FIL, never used his debit card in his life. His family or carer gets his money out for him with a card. Simply having a debit card is not proof someone can use it.

Even if he is elderly now he's had many, many years when he was younger to bother to learn how to use his bank card. It hasn't suddenly been sprung on him.

If he's giving his pin to others that aren't also named on his account (and who aren't withdrawing at a bank he has an agreement at to have a second account user) and he's the victim of card fraud he will have no recompense as he's broken the terms of usage by handing out his pin to other people.

The difficulty is when people get to an age when they can no longer remember pin numbers. I have seen elderly people take out written pieces of paper from their purse with their pin number on it as they can no longer remember it.

In that case contactless is perfect. No need to remember a pin and faff around at a cash point getting bits of paper out to take physical cash out.

Even if he is elderly now he's had many, many years when he was younger to bother to learn how to use his bank card. It hasn't suddenly been sprung on him

So? People forget skills that they had. Some people never had them, some people don't trust banks or cards, some people like to use cash. Some people cannot get bank accounts at all.

If you have a cashless society how do homeless people buy so much as a coffee?

In that case contactless is perfect. No need to remember a pin and faff around at a cash point getting bits of paper out to take physical cash out

Contactless is limited as to amount (30 quid where I live) so no, not at all.

You don’t seem to have much experience of elderly people LimonViola

Another thought. Will having a cashless society stop people begging on the streets? How will the homeless be able to get a hot drink or something to eat? Will they have to carry card readers around with them?