Does Spending Cash Really Save Money?

Stompa

phona wrote: »

Unless it's under £10...? So am I the only one who puts a £1 bottle of milk on the card?

Nope, I think my lowest ever credit card transaction was 14p.

reclusive46

Stompa wrote: »

Nope, I think my lowest ever credit card transaction was 14p.

Haha. I had a gift card for M&S, which left me of a total balance of 2p after all the money had been taken from it, I didn't have any cash on me, so I paid by card. The woman at the till wasn't even sure it would allow it to go through. It was a contactless transaction though, so was nice and quick anyway.

phona

reclusive46 wrote: »

Haha. I had a gift card for M&S, which left me of a total balance of 2p after all the money had been taken from it, I didn't have any cash on me, so I paid by card. The woman at the till wasn't even sure it would allow it to go through. It was a contactless transaction though, so was nice and quick anyway.

You missed a trick there - should have just faffed about looking for some change until someone in the queue got fed up and gave you 2p People are always in a hurry, make use of it.

My lowest transaction was 66p but that was online so I'd have struggled to use cash. Other than that, I've never been below £1. I know, amateur much!

darcyboo

I found spending with cash really useful when I was working on getting my finances under control. It meant I couldn't overspend, once my weekly cash withdrawal was gone, that was that. I feel it helped me to change my spending habits, and now things are back on track i've been able to switch back to using my cards, this time much more sensibly.

Hooloovoo

dano17439 wrote: »

How about flipping it? If you had a £10 note and bought something for £6, you can bet that the other £4 would be frittered away on a newspaper, a coffee etc etc. whereas if you used a card, you would only spend the £6

SuperHan wrote: »

For me, the money I have is equal to by bank balance as that's what I want for budgeting. So any cash I have in purse I see as bonus money, or money that's already spent, so I find I spend it quite frivolously as opposed to money in my card!

^^ This :T

These two posts are the crux of the matter for me.

If I withdraw cash then the transaction appears on my statement, and as with any other transaction that means the money is then gone.

So anything I purchase with cash in my wallet is essentially "free".

I try not to carry around much more than £20-30 in my wallet because I'm too lazy to keep track of all the fiddling small change. As much as possible everything goes on cards and tracked with Gnucash.

Sayva

phona wrote: »

Unless it's under £10...? So am I the only one who puts a £1 bottle of milk on the card? I want my 1p cashback.....

I've heard this is often an age related thing... the younger you are, the more likely you are to use cards for low value transactions. I'd just feel a bit awkward getting my card out to pay for a low value item.

The other exception I have is if it's a small independent retailer. I'll usually pay in cash even if it's a fairly high value transaction because I think it's a bit unethical making them pay the card transaction fee.