To ask if going cashless is a good thing.

[smittenkittten]

Most people I know don’t want to go cashless, but it seems to be inevitable that we are heading that way. Personally I hate the idea. There’s so many occasions when cash is needed, too many to mention, but it’s the little things mainly. Treating the grandkids, summer fetes, bring and buy sales, car boots......all the things where you usually use cash..
Will it just be digits in a bank account? What if you lose your phone? ...What do people think of it all?

That's interesting, every shop near me make sure you have cash before putting it through!

My mum's shop does this as they had a spate of people come in to get their key topped up and then their card would get declined, there's no way to uncredited the key afterwards so they changed all PayPoint transactions to cash only.

@Pedalpushers

I cannot remember the last time I wasn't able to pay for something by card.

Sadly my local ( and best!) Chinese takeaway doesn't accept cards.

I’m happy just to have cards/contactless.

The elderly/cognitively compromised people I know find it far easier than having to work out the right cash and check the change (just as we would all find it easier to pay contactless than in cash in a foreign country).

Going cashless would mean fewer people could dodge paying tax. Me and my husband are about the only couple I know who both work as employees and pay full tax. Nearly everyone else who I know has at least one of them who is self employed and gets paid cash for everything so they can pay minimal cash and/or receive tax credits.

I couldnt have left my ex without cash.

@Ericaequites

No, as Big Brother doesn’t need to know everything I buy. It’s inconvenient for small purchases. Grey market purchases such as boot sales or Facebook Marketplace would be difficult.I keep cash hidden in the house for emergencies as well. What if you had a credit card problem and had it shut off due to fraud or theft?

I don't understand any of these points really. How is it inconvenient for small purchases? I find it much easier, just use your card rather than having to fiddle around to find exact change, or break a note then carry a lot of dirty, random, heavy change around with me. A card means I can go pretty much anywhere with just my phone and keys and not have to cart around a handbag to carry a purse full of change, store cards, etc., or take out what I 'need' for different occasions and then forget to put it back, etc etc.

If one of my cards got blocked (which is pretty unlikely, has never happened to me in 20 years of having various debit/credit cards) I would just use an different one and sort it out with the bank.

How would 'big brother' know everything I buy? Barclays might see that I spent £20 in Tesco but wouldn't have a clue what I bought -could be food, or alcohol, fags, tampons, or clothes. I split my bills and purchases over different cards, so no one company would know exactly everywhere I shopped, and even if they did they wouldn't know what I was buying. And you know what, even if I only used one bankcard, and by linking with my clubcard tesco could see that I buy a bottle of wine on payday (or whatever) - who cares? I'm not buying illegal drugs or weapons, if some random corporation becomes aware that I occasionally buy a particular brand of cheese, does it matter?

@Ihaveattached

Going cashless would mean fewer people could dodge paying tax. Me and my husband are about the only couple I know who both work as employees and pay full tax. Nearly everyone else who I know has at least one of them who is self employed and gets paid cash for everything so they can pay minimal cash and/or receive tax credits.

I see this a lot on these threads.

Numerous people get paid 100% cash and pay their taxes. Plenty of others get paid electronically, by cheque or whatever other means and dodge their taxes.

It's very important that people have access to cash. If that means a few people dodge their taxes, then I would rather that than have people suffering DV (or whatever) having no access to money whatsoever.

I don’t, nor do I know anyone who does, carry cash anymore. I don’t need to, much easier not to get lost or stolen too when it’s all in my bank. Can even pay for taxi and bus fares with my bank card now, it’s so much easier.

I cannot remember the last time I wasn't able to pay for something by card.

I can. I couldn’t pay our bar tab at the local pub because their internet had gone down. It was out for a week.

@Clocktopus

That's interesting, every shop near me make sure you have cash before putting it through!

My mum's shop does this as they had a spate of people come in to get their key topped up and then their card would get declined, there's no way to uncredited the key afterwards so they changed all PayPoint transactions to cash only.

The shop I use won't do the top-up until the payment has gone through. If the card is declined then they won't put the key in the machine.

Glad there’s others who aren’t keen. I think a big worry IS the control thing. Who knows how things could be years from now. But it’s the vulnerable people in our society who it could affect greatly and let’s face it, they are never on the top of any governments agenda.

I can't remember the last time I couldn't pay with either my debit or credit card.
I suppose if I couldn't then I would have to trudge to the cashpoint and get some cash out, if the purchase was essential.

I think cash is a good way to teach kids about money. Give them a fiver to buy things in the corner shop, they have to work out what combination of things they can buy, what their change will be, interact with the shopkeeper etc. Not just beep a card.

And my grandparents love to give the kids "spending money" here and there which isn't the same if its a bank transfer to the parents account. Same with pocket money.

But these are just small grievances, on a big scale I don't really have an issue with it.

I'm fine personally with no cash, but for those in difficulties of many kinds, it's just another way of removing choices. People trying to escape abuse have already been mentioned, as well as elderly or the less tech-literate, but I'm remembering a situation a few years ago with a friend who was just in pain simple financial dire straits, which wasn't her own fault. Debits had gone out of her bank but took her over her overdraft limit and subsequent ones were declined. She couldn't withdraw money or spend anything anywhere. If I'd have transferred her £20 for a few basics from tesco it would have done no good as her card would still be declined. I could give her cash though so she could go and get what she needed that day whilst waiting for the bank and her employer to sort out the issue.

It's a very privileged position to view this from, if you're able to say you just use a card, or a different one if one is declined.

@Samcro

I worry about people like my adult dc They are disabled to the extent that they can't pay for stuff themselves, so the carer has to do it, the carers are not allowed to use cards where the resident can't put in a pin. So how the hell will dd be able to spend money.

Exactly, we have the same problem. Going cashless will discriminate indirectly against these groups as they haven't got the means to access services and goods in this way.

In a cashless society, anyone doing things like boot fairs more than once in a blue moon would have a cheap card reader - you can pick one up new for £20-30 depending on brand.

Business's have to pay a fee for every card transaction, for small business those costs can be alot of their profits! Especially people spending under £5 on card.

There's many now that just do a % fee regardless of how much is spent in that transaction - so 10 x £2 transactions cost the same as one £20 transaction. Zettle is one example.

I run a small business and while I pay out 1.75% in card fees, I'd lose far more than 1.75% of my customers if I didn't have it, simply because a significant proportion of the population no longer carries cash.

I can't remember the last time I couldn't pay with either my debit or credit card.

I'm rural and lots of places still don't accept card. We also have a lot of honesty boxes/huts here, and our local chippy still only takes cash.

Even at my local farmers market, all the traders have card machines - invariably Zettle or SumUp. It's really not a big issue for small businesses.

@icedcoffees

I can't remember the last time I couldn't pay with either my debit or credit card.

I'm rural and lots of places still don't accept card. We also have a lot of honesty boxes/huts here, and our local chippy still only takes cash.

I'm quite rural. At one of the pubs I go to they have to go outside with the card machine and stand virtually in the middle of the road to get a signal. They always manage it though.

Chippy not only takes cards but you can order and pay online before you go.

There's loads of little places with honesty boxes selling eggs etc at the side of the road, but I just don't use them.

Yes I live near quite a few farms that have honesty boxes for fresh eggs, butter etc. All that would go. Sad really.

I use cash for:

1. Giving DS £2 for his piggy bank.

2. Giving the ladies at nursery a card with a cash gift inside. I don’t have their paypal / venmo / bank details, and don’t want to ask. I could give them eg a M&S card, but don’t want to dictate where they spend the gift.

3. Giving coins to the homeless.

4. On holidays, where the price of using my card abroad is sometimes 2.5x the price of an ice cream I’m trying to buy.

Everything else I’ve been using the card / contactless / paypal / bank transfers.

Love being cashless but Revolut works better than the traditional banks for it. Quick transfer of money in, locking money into vaults, being able to check my card details in the app etc etc... I'd take this any day over having to deal with coins and notes. I don't think it would be as easy to manage with an old school bank.

... also I sound like a Revolut shill but I'm not, I promise

Chippy not only takes cards but you can order and pay online before you go.

None of our local takeaways have online ordering, lol. We don't have Uber-eats or anything like that here either.

One takeaway allows you to ring and pay over the phone, but all the others are pay in person - most do take card now but there are still a couple that require you to pay cash.

There's loads of little places with honesty boxes selling eggs etc at the side of the road, but I just don't use them.

Obviously that's your choice but I think it would be such a shame if those things ceased to exist. I love supporting local farms and businesses - and many are in areas where there's no phone signal for miles, let alone wireless internet.

I can understand those living in towns and cities being ok with cashless, but if you live somewhere like I do that has poor signal areas then cash is the only option sometimes. The area where the pub, hairdresser and butchers are located is bad and you can be waiting a long time for the transaction to go through. At weekends they do ask that people pay cash rather than card.

I can't see it happening, not for a very long time at least.

I think it'll be like the whole getting rid of cheques thing. A few years ago we were told that cheques were obsolete, then suddenly they weren't.

I haven't used cash for buying anything for absolutely ages, but have used it for giving grandchildren cash presents and for a donation recently.

What happens to people who don't have a bank account if cash is done away with?

Homeless people will be screwed if they can't buy a bit of food unless they pay by card; can't imagine many of them have bank accounts.