Could you live without cash?

jackieblack

I would imagine that for those wgo live and work in a city/major town, being cashless is a more practical proposition.

For those of us who live in areas with poor/unreliable mobile signals and/or broadband, cash is still needed on a regular basis.
For example, around here, cash is still needed for car park machines, bus fares, local taxi, window cleaner etc etc. Card payment/payment via app is not an option.
While stores belonging to national chains do accept cards without extra charges, smaller/local stores/services often have a minimum transaction value or make an additional charge if they accept cards at all.

Savvy_Sue

Our buses are supposed to take contactless payments. Didn't work for us on Sunday, didn't work for DS1 later. And the website is very clear: if your contactless payment doesn't work, you pay cash or don't get on the bus!

AubreyMac

Not read all posts so I'll just answer the titled question.

for me I budget better with cash as I can only spend what I have on me. I find cards more difficult to stay disciplined (as there's more wriggle room) but if cash disappeared I'll get used to being totally reliant on cards.

There's a history of gambling addiction in my family, and again cash is easier to make someone see the damage & losses more than digits appearing on screen.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Absolutely not ever cashless.

If the banking computer systems fall over, as they do from time to time, or the shops have power cuts/telephone faults, you can't buy food until they're fixed. It's pretty pointless going to buy cheap fruit and veggies at a market without cash as well.

The only time I'd countenance not using cash is in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse - as you'd need to have things to barter instead, what with money having no meaning anymore. And as that's fairly unlikely (although the nutters threatening to hoy nuclear missles at one another could achieve something of similar impact through electromagnetic pulses knocking out the systems permanently), I'll stick to getting x amount out of the cash machine and keeping it on me at all times.

LameWolf

I don't have a smartphone and don't want one, so couldn't use that for paying for anything.
I do use credit cards for two of the supermarkets I use, but always pay cash in @ldi.
I also use cash for:
Mr LW's Saturday newspaper.
Drinks if we visit the pub .
Small charitable donations (you know the sort of thing, loose change in the collecting box on the bar).
Small purchases - say under a fiver when it's not worth putting on the credit card.
Paying for goods at the Farmers Market and the F&V stall in Central MK - none of the traders are set up for cards afaik.
Charity shop purchases.

So no, I couldn't cope with going totally cashless

badmemory

Apart from anything else - why would I want some computer to know how many litres of whisky I drink in a week? I mean can you imagine the deluge of emails? 50% trying to sell me more & 50% trying to get me to go teetotal, absolute nightmare!

takman

badmemory wrote: »

Apart from anything else - why would I want some computer to know how many litres of whisky I drink in a week? I mean can you imagine the deluge of emails? 50% trying to sell me more & 50% trying to get me to go teetotal, absolute nightmare!

Paying by card for a purchase doesn't record what items you are buying. Although loyalty cards such as Tesco Clubcard and Nectar card are designed for exactly this reason and lots of people use them when paying in cash only.