to not want to turn up in a foreign country with no cash, just card ?

[Lemonadedrinker99]

Every time we go abroad H insists we don't take any cash, instead we just take a pre-loaded card (which we can top up as and when during the holiday). How can a family with children turn up abroad with zero cash ? we need to get taxi's to/from the airport as a starter. He argues there are cash points out there, yes there will be but what if the neartest cash point is either out of order, run out of cash or charges £5 a go (which is what we have found in the past) to get cash (plus our banks currency charge). We've had a massive row this morning when I asked him what currency we need to take. He went into one saying he will sort the money side out and i dont need to waste money paying to get the currency in the uk.

Just to add for context ...

a) last year he went to get cash out of the cash machine abroad and it wanted to charge him the equivalent of £5 to draw cash - the money was needed for a boat trip where it was cash only on the boat for drinks/snax. Luckily i had the small stash i took with me that we could use
b) we once arrived abroad with no cash (his idea) and the airport cash machine was broken, so was the hotel one. The nearest one was a 30 minute walk away each way, which H did.
c) earlier this year while in the States we trugged for what seemed like ages to try to find a 'free' cash point. No idea if he found a free one in the end or just ended up paying the withdrawal fee - the fee would have been the same if we had brought currency in the UK, and much easier and less time consuming too
d) the pre-loaded card doesn't always work - we have an app to xfer cash onto the card, he ALWAYS tried to xfer the cash to the card in a way that doesn't work. Earlier this year he tried to xfer £100 while abroad, the xfer failed (because the way he was doing it is wrong, but he wont accept it), he tried it 5 times in the end. The money left our 'available' balance, but never left the account or reached the card, and we had to wait 5 days for £500 to go back onto our 'available' bank account balance

Depends what country it is. Germany and you'll be able to pay for your transport by card so you can get to a cashpoint at any time, Thailand and you'll be screwed on the exchange at the airport. Google will be able to tell you what currency you need. I always have spare Euros and US dollars between trips, elsewhere I keep some GB pounds or US dollars (depending on the country) with me to exchange in an emergency. Then I rely on cashpoints.

There's more underlying your OP though; he likes to do things in a certain way and you know that, so you can challenge him to be more flexible (difficult for him and seems to have led to an argument) or you can take emergency money without discussing it to keep the peace and prevent issues while on holiday.

If you can't face an argument with him just say something like

'of course darling we should be able to use cards everywhere, but as we are travelling with the kids, lets make sure we have £100 or whatever of emergency cash with us. It might be helpful in case of airport taxis, broken machines, etc. I will sort it myself and hopefully we won't need to use it'

but I agree with PP that you have a husband problem. but then if he has aspergers and some other conditions it is a slightly different problem ie than his just being an argumentative dick!

Depends where you are. Europe, Australia, and the Americas yes definitely take cash as you may need some for non-Uber forms of transport. In Central and South America the ability to hand cash over to a would be mugger rather than let them lead you to a cash point could save your life.

In Asia, if you’re in a major conurbation where HSBC is the main international bank (ie most of them), you do not need cash at all. You can often use your card and / or take cash out from a HSBC ATM with better rates than you would get at home.

Tell the daft sod (a) not to be such a dick and (b) that if he's going to be insistent then get a card that doesn't attract fees when used in Foreign. There are plenty about. I use Travelwise, plus a type of Amex that's free almost everywhere.

I personally only ever take any leftover cash from last time I happened to be using that currency, if I have any - but most places I end up are very card oriented so it's not a bother.

You should take a few forms of money , some cash , a debit card and a credit card or at least 2 debit cards, in case of a problem with 1 of them. Personally i dont like the preloaded money cards and would never just rely on it as the only.form of money

Get a Monzo or starling card, and you just transfer cash to it from your current account from an app on your phone.
If anyone is going to Sweden, don’t bother changing money before you go. When we went, I intended to withdraw cash at the airport but forgot, but we didn’t use cash the whole time we were there. A lot of businesses don’t take cash, including our large hotel. Even the Big Issue sellers had small payment devices. Boat trips, ice cream vans in the park, public loos (50p a wee!) street food vans - all pay by card only.

I thought the rule was always to have two options for getting money / paying for things overseas. So that if one option doesn't work out you have a fall back.

To be fair, it's also "#notnormal" to make such a palaver on your side about the way HE prefers to operate.

Why do you need to convince him that YOUR way is right, when you can easily just do it your way without even referring to him?

I have a fee free credit card for withdrawals, and have never had to traipse around for an atm without an additional charge. They're usually very obviously placed - no matter what country I've been to. We tend to have a stash of change in Euros that we dip into also.

You can just google what the currency is. Don't keep having the same conversation with him, he is being ridiculous. Just take out whatever cash you want.

Aside from this, he sounds very difficult to live with.

Are you sure you want to go on holiday with him??!!

Can you not just take some out yourself? I always take £300 in cash due to this but dh has half as do I plus the rates overseas can be expensive when taking out cash.

I feel your pain, my DH always says we won't need cash or at best says we won't need more than €20 or so as we can use a card. This makes me panicky so I always have to negotiate the amount of cash upwards to a level that I'm happy with. I do understand that PROBABLY we won't need it, but there can be unexpected situations where some cash is useful. In your situation OP I'd just agree with him and then sort some cash out anyway

It's never a good idea to rely on a single payment method even at home. Bank systems fail, phones get lost or run out of battery, cards get lost or stolen.

When travelling abroad, we always have a bit of cash, have plenty of spending money on my Starling card, which we primarily use, plus we both have a Santander Zero credit card, which we use for hire car deposits and can also use for cash or spending without any charges from the bank (but watch out for some countries charging for credit cards which is why we also have the debit card).

I also don't see the point in prepay cards, and I think they all have charges of some description, so can't see why you would use one.

YANBU

There is no way I would travel without any cash unless I was going on an all inclusive package holiday and didn’t plan to leave the hotel.

Don’t bother arguing, just get some currency out each time you go away without telling him. Enjoy giving him your ‘I told you so’ look when the cash is needed and you produce your secret stash.

We use credit cards that don't charge to withdraw from cash machines, Nationwide last time I was in America.

It's really dumb not to have cash: how do you pay for taxis that don't have card facilities? Or for minor stuff that costs a couple of euros? Crazy.

I'd take more cash than dh wants to. Over the years we've learnt to compromise.

YANBU. I travel a lot for work and always make sure I have local currency, a loaded card and perhaps US dollars too (depending on where I am going).

Post Office has bit crap exchange rates. We take just emergency cash worth about £30 and the rest we withdraw from our normal bank card in the destination because even with the % fee it works out better since the bank has good exchange rate. 1 big withdrawal.

I’m more of a ‘use a cash machine when you get there’ person because I’d rather lose £5 on withdrawal fee than much more if my whole stash got stolen in one go.

It also sounds like you were being a bit passive aggressive with the ‘what currency do we need?’ Surely you could google that - especially if you know he prefers to just use cash machines when you arrive?

The OP’s husband is being dick even besides the Aspergers condition. And weirdly controlling. But yes, @Lemonadedrinker99 I wouldn’t bother having the conversation with him anymore so you can save yourself some shouty frustration each time you go on holiday. Take out some cash and don’t bother telling him. Regarding the boat trip that required cash, I wouldn’t have whipped out your stash either. I’d have let him go traipsing off to find cash again, if it didn’t mean your family missed the excursion. But I can be a petty bitch sometimes. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Dh and I used to do this. We did find it a bit difficult at times to find currency. But we always knew how we were getting to the hotel. And only to places, where there would deffo be cash machines. His decisions aren’t more important than yours just because he has some additional needs. Otherwise it becomes abusive.

I think you need some strategies of how to talk to him though. A £5 charge can be offset by a better exchange rate as this is just commission at the end of the day - unless you withdraw the equivalent of £50 at a time.

Why do you need to ask him what currency is needed? It’s easy enough to find out yourself.

I take cash depending on where I am travelling to. Often it is not necessary, and I have multiple cards (always one that works). However, in many European and South American countries, it can still be very tricky to get around with just a card, and I will make sure I have a couple of bills to fall back on. Just research the country you are going to a bit.

As others have said, don't take cash if you are travelling to Scandinavia. You won't be able to spend it.

How is this an argument?

He does not want to bring cash so he does not bring cash.

You think it’s important to bring cash so you bring some.

Check before you go to make sure though that it’s still a cash friendly country. Just like a PP, we went to Sweden recently and brought our spending money in cash. Big mistake, a lot of places didn’t accept it and those who did, well they kind of gave you the impression they thought it was an inconvenience having to handle cash.

I haven't changed cash money in a long time. Sounds very old fashioned to me. I use cards and usually go somewhere in the EURO zone so will have some left over from last time. I also make sure I've got quite a bit in stirling just in case the machines at the airport don't work and I end up needing to go to a bureau de change.