how much cash do you carry on average?

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  • agrinnall
    agrinnall Posts: 23,344 Forumite
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    The forum rules require threads such as this to be posted on the Surveys board.

    We regularly receive requests to post surveys on our forum, often from students looking for help with their studies. We'd like to help, especially if the subject's a MoneySaving one. So, if you're an ordinary forum user and have a survey you'd like to post this is the place to do it. Please post it once only though and remember, our usual Forum Rules apply.
  • custardy
    custardy Posts: 38,365 Forumite
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    very rarely carry/use cash these days.
    contactless by phone mostly
  • Vortigern
    Vortigern Posts: 3,247 Forumite
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    I usually carry up to £50 for those places that don't accept cards and a small amount of change for parking.

    My preference is to use:
    Cards rather than cash
    Credit card rather than debit card
    Contactless rather than chip/pin

    - except where a discount or premium applies.
  • badmemory
    badmemory Posts: 7,842 Forumite
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    I carry more cash than I should having been caught too many times by the card machine isn't working thing. Whilst you can put shopping back on the shelf, you can't put petrol back in the pump. So whilst I carry a lot I rarely spend it. I mostly spend on a cashback credit card, although there are places where I would NEVER use a card. In one place where the card machine they are using (whichever it is) isn't working at the moment so they disappear with your card.

    It is only fairly recently that contactless appeared around here. I was quite reluctant to use it at first, but am quite happy to now. I wonder though how easy or difficult it is to keep track if you are paying parking or tube or bus fares several times a day, especially when some things don't appear for several days.

    So I now keep the same cash float as I used to but actually withdraw a lot less cash to top up. I mostly just pay the gardener & lottery tickets by cash. Some places charge it as a cash withdrawal from your credit card for gambling.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    Holiday Haggler
    edited 18 September 2017 at 11:09AM
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    £20-30 .. there's not a lot of point carrying more since you can usually pay by card for anything else. That cash is usually in my wallet to pay the gardeners anyway.

    It does help I live a few minutes walk from a cash machine though
  • central
    central Posts: 202 Forumite
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    I always keep a £20 note behind the sun visor in the car
  • takman
    takman Posts: 3,876 Forumite
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    I always use card payments whenever I can because it's much easier to see where my money has been spent and you don't have any annoying change to carry around.

    Alot of people seem to think it's easier to budget using cash but I find the opposite to be true. If I have to withdraw cash then I always have to get more than I need to cover the purchase and then I'm more likely to spend or give away the change because I don't want to carry it around.
  • Nebulous2
    Nebulous2 Posts: 5,130 Forumite
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    I've been gradually moving away from cash in the last 18 months or so. I used to carry quite a bit and never paid anything below £10 by card. More recently I've been using contactless even for coffee / cake type transactions.

    Nowadays I usually take out £20 and it lasts me about 2 weeks. I arrived home from holiday 3 days ago and still haven't made it to a bank machine so I have no £s at all. (I have 30 euros though!)
  • worried_jim
    worried_jim Posts: 11,631 Forumite
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    I'm totally cashless, never need it. Contactless in the Starbucks at work with save the change activated on my bank account which pays for a holiday every year.
    Takeaways are ordered by an app and paid up front. I don't even take foreign currency abroad anymore and just withdraw via ATM on arrival for better rates.
    I think I've even gone from one payday to the next without withdrawing cash this year and will also have Apple Pay before the year is out.
  • Phdangst
    Phdangst Posts: 10 Forumite
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    Very rarely withdraw cash - only if I know I am going to have to pay for something where only cash accepted. It is much more convenient nowadays due to apps such as RingGo to pay for parking where only cash was accepted before.
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