Going Cash

zaxdog

I use a combination of both. Credit card for large purposes which I then pay off straight away for the purchase protection. Debit card for Morrisons delivery. We live a 50 mile round trip from the nearest town so they do a click and collect twice a week at the village hall. I also use cash as in this area it is a necessity for: honesty boxes where we get eggs, veggies, jams etc for local events like the village fete which are all cash and for local small businesses which prefer cash. Lots of local shops have signs up saying they prefer cash. As for the wee man counting his coins for a beer how about a little humanity? Nobody with a few exceptions is in that much of a hurry that they can't display a little compassion and patience!

IrishRose12

MattMattMattUK said:

weenancyinAmerica said:

I suppose we are just going to have to get debit cards for the children to use on school events, transaction stations for those who sell eggs at home or the book people in Hay on Wye who put up stands along the alleys and give the homeless apps to use for accepting donations. But it would be hard to buy those poppies for Remembrance Day if everyone had to have a card reader  or credit card for those.

Most schools are already cashless, children get a prepaid card, often patent pay. On the local school events they have card readers on every stand, though the solution is imperfect for primary age children, things will adapt, just as they always have.

Poppy sellers have had card readers for years, in general it encourages people to give more, I tend to pay five or ten pounds and most people I know seem to do the same.

Thankfully the school I work in is cash only.  And always will be.  

My children's schools are also cash only, the eldest child's school tried to insist on card payments, until a number of parents took the matter to the board of governors and a solicitor informed them they weren't allowed to enforce this in a school.  Especially when many parents didn't have credit cards and didn't want to share their debit card details with the school.  Because cash is legal tender, they weren't allowed to refuse cash.  Especially if a parent needed to pay £2.65 for a school dinner one day. 

Regarding the older population using technology, my parents and elderly family members and neighbours don't use mobile phones, tablets. Some don't even have the Internet.
When it comes to my mum and aunt renewing insurance for cars, house insurance or travel insurance they do it via telephone, or at the post office.  
I myself renew my car and house insurance via the phone. 
My neighbours etc order their oil via telephone, their prescriptions etc. Doctors, dentist, opticians all done via phone also.

And yes, we still have our house phones a d use them daily also.  
Just becuase "data" says something different doesn't mean it's and factual..... a lot of data is fixed to that companies/persons own requirements.  

bouicca21

Way back in the mid 90s my boss had a plan to provide a digital service.  Staff protested that the customer base for this particular service was overwhelmingly retired and therefore unfamiliar with technology.  We did a survey, turned out that the ´elderly’ customers were way more technically savvy than the staff.

oldernonethewiser

IrishRose12 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

weenancyinAmerica said:

I suppose we are just going to have to get debit cards for the children to use on school events, transaction stations for those who sell eggs at home or the book people in Hay on Wye who put up stands along the alleys and give the homeless apps to use for accepting donations. But it would be hard to buy those poppies for Remembrance Day if everyone had to have a card reader  or credit card for those.

Most schools are already cashless, children get a prepaid card, often patent pay. On the local school events they have card readers on every stand, though the solution is imperfect for primary age children, things will adapt, just as they always have.

Poppy sellers have had card readers for years, in general it encourages people to give more, I tend to pay five or ten pounds and most people I know seem to do the same.

Thankfully the school I work in is cash only.  And always will be.  

My children's schools are also cash only, the eldest child's school tried to insist on card payments, until a number of parents took the matter to the board of governors and a solicitor informed them they weren't allowed to enforce this in a school.  Especially when many parents didn't have credit cards and didn't want to share their debit card details with the school.  Because cash is legal tender, they weren't allowed to refuse cash.  Especially if a parent needed to pay £2.65 for a school dinner one day. 

Regarding the older population using technology, my parents and elderly family members and neighbours don't use mobile phones, tablets. Some don't even have the Internet.
When it comes to my mum and aunt renewing insurance for cars, house insurance or travel insurance they do it via telephone, or at the post office.  
I myself renew my car and house insurance via the phone. 
My neighbours etc order their oil via telephone, their prescriptions etc. Doctors, dentist, opticians all done via phone also.

And yes, we still have our house phones a d use them daily also.  
Just becuase "data" says something different doesn't mean it's and factual..... a lot of data is fixed to that companies/persons own requirements.  

Wonder why they have decided to never offer parents a choice?

Cash isn't necessarily legal tender

What does the data comment mean?

General_Grant

IrishRose12 said:
 . . .
eldest child's school tried to insist on card payments, until a number of parents took the matter to the board of governors and a solicitor informed them they weren't allowed to enforce this in a school.  . . .   Because cash is legal tender, they weren't allowed to refuse cash.  . . .

I wonder what is special about a school?
Cash is legal tender - for paying debts, not simply for buying things.

JIL

My children when they were at school, which is a while ago used cards. It actually was a really good system. I sent in a cheque, it went onto their accounts and they used the card to pay for their dinner. I then got to see what they had spent the money on. What was especially good was the children on free school meals were not visible at all. Same card.

We used cash for our school dinners at school. I regularly pocketed the cash and went hungry and the cash was used for some magazines or other illicit stuff at the weekend. 

leftatthetrafficlights

MattMattMattUK said:

leftatthetrafficlights said:

MattMattMattUK said:

leftatthetrafficlights said:

MattMattMattUK said:

IrishRose12 said:

weenancyinAmerica said:

I think a person's age has a lot to do with the answers we are getting. Young people seem to only want a card society. Older people are afraid of a card only society. I wonder if a study has been done on how this card society affects charity giving as some of the answers sound like they don't give anything away to others. I see a card only society becoming very self-centered and lacking in empathy and it worries me.

Nothing to do with age.  I'm in my late 30's and will always use cash.  

Most people where I live are also going back to using cash, both young and old. Another 2 shops this week have put signs up in our local area stating they are only accepting cash from now on in.  

That is the exact opposite of anywhere I go as well as the data and reports in the media. Many businesses already card only or moving to card only, hardly anyone of any age using cash anymore. I am a similar age to you, I have not used cash for four years now and in the two years before that I used less than £100 of cash. 

The data also shows that the vast majority of transactions both by volume and value are on card and that is still growing, although some people seem to have an aversion to card payments and are getting quite vocal about their demands to use cash or go elsewhere the businesses response is generally to let them go, cash is just not worth the cost or hassle. 

I've noticed many more people using cash than previously - our local tesco has a couple of cash only self-serve tills and there are regularly queues for those whereas I breeze through the card tills. My dd who is in her thirties has taken to using cash as opposed to card in the past six months or so as have the majority of her friends. Everyone will have different experiences and anecdotal evidence when it comes to this issue and are more than entitled to make a choice about their own methods of spending their money without being accused of irrationality! 

If people are saying that they want to be money saving, then excluding online shopping and any retail operations that do not accept cash then that is contradictory and irrational. Refusing to use digital payments for a bunch of reasons previously listed which do not make sense, such as "not being told what to do", is irrational. 

leftatthetrafficlights said:
I'm confused as to why you feel that accepting cash is more costly to the retailer - I used to own a retail business and having a card machine meant I paid the bank a monthly fee plus a percentage of each transaction; cash was bagged up and deposited for free....definitely preferable for me and my profit margin! 

Banks now charge cash handling fees, change fees, it costs employee time to cash up and visit bank branches, it increases losses (either accidental or through employee dishonesty), it increases insurance costs etc. Larger businesses will use the facilities of cash delivery and collection companies etc.

For card payments a small business will be looking at no monthly fee and around 1.2% transaction fee on a credit card, for debit cards it can be as low as 20p per transaction, large businesses will be paying less than one percent.

Many people find it easier to control their budgets using cash, it doesn't mean that they are not trying to be money saving, it just means that they have set parameters that work for them on their journey. Just because you disagree with their reasoning or principles doesn't make their choices irrational nor does it invalidate them.

Stating that one's aim is to buy items in the most cost effective, cost efficient way possible, then ruling out the vast majority of buying goods and/or services in the most cost effective way is irrational, it is a logical contradiction, one cannot choose both.

leftatthetrafficlights said:
I buy predominantly ethically produced products that cost considerably more than the standard off the shelf equivalents cost and boycott certain producers - that doesn't mean that I'm not money saving or irrational, 

But yours is a different statement, you are not saying "I want to buy the cheapest product", you are saying "I want to buy the cheapest ethical* product", at the cheapest price, therefore your statement is not contradictory. 

leftatthetrafficlights said:
my journey. 

.

leftatthetrafficlights said:

From having a quick mooch on the internet, the average bank cash handling charge is around 50p per £100 deposited - so while I acknowledge that things have changed since I owned my business, I would disagree that it's more expensive for a small business to accept cash - 

That is deposit fees, there also change fees, usually with a percentage and a per bag charge, it raises insurance, in some cases significantly, one pub I frequent on occasion was explaining that the main reason they went cashless (more than 90% of transactions were already card) was that the costs of their insurance was around £1,800 a year cheaper if they stopped handling cash. It also reduces the time needed to cash up, the time needed to go to and from the bank, it reduces losses from either error or employee dishonesty. 

leftatthetrafficlights said:
depending on the types of goods sold, 20p per transaction would certainly have a negative impact on profits.

Cost wise SumUp, which I see a lot with smaller traders offer 1.49% and no transaction fee with no monthly cost, or 0.79% with no transaction fee and a £19 month subscription fee. Having looked again the 20-25p minimum charges only seem to apply to online transactions (that applies to what my business pays), in person fees have no transaction fee associated with them. Other card processors seem to charge similar amounts. 

I may be wrong, but looking back, I can't see where @Madbat60 stated that their aim is to buy things in 'the most cost effective, cost efficient way' - my interpretation has been that they try to be money saving within their cash purchases 🤔  I may have missed something  (I don't feel the need to police other people's choices so don't necessarily examine every statement made, I just accept the general ethos that they espouse) so have no idea why you feel the need to so vehemently express your obvious distain for those who choose a different path to yourself  🤷‍♀️ Also not sure why you have felt the need to asterisk 'ethical' in your response to my post 🤔 surely if you're making a point of doing so you have some comment to make so feel free to do so...

JIL

General_Grant said:

IrishRose12 said:
 . . .
eldest child's school tried to insist on card payments, until a number of parents took the matter to the board of governors and a solicitor informed them they weren't allowed to enforce this in a school.  . . .   Because cash is legal tender, they weren't allowed to refuse cash.  . . .

I wonder what is special about a school?
Cash is legal tender - for paying debts, not simply for buying things.

Heres an extract defining legal tender.

Rosa_Damascena

@MattMattMattUK - I agree about the veteran poppy sellers, it encourages me to buy more merch and donate on top of that.

@zaxdog - If I lived in the sticks I too would be keeping a wad of notes and a stash of coins for unexpected expenditure.

@JIL - I used to do the same with school dinner money, which I had on Tuesdays only! If I bought anything at all it would be a slice of chocolate cake and a glass of green fizz (ie the kind of stuff that should be banned). My parents never knew what I ate because they never asked. They were busy earning a wage to pay for bills and put food on the table in the evenings.

greenbee

bouicca21 said:

Way back in the mid 90s my boss had a plan to provide a digital service.  Staff protested that the customer base for this particular service was overwhelmingly retired and therefore unfamiliar with technology.  We did a survey, turned out that the ´elderly’ customers were way more technically savvy than the staff.

My mum's in her 80s and is perfectly capable of doing everything she needs to online. Living out in the sticks she doesn't want to have to use cash as it isn't easy to get hold of so it would mean keeping lots in the house. She doesn't like using cheques as she wants the money out of her account as she spends it. She uses credit cards and debit cards so she can keep control of her spending and pays by BACs for things like help in the garden. She also does her supermarket shopping online as well as stuff like insurance, requesting repeat prescriptions etc. And she gets REALLY fed up with people assuming that because she's in her 80s she can't use technology. Oh - and she keeps in touch with family and friends via whatsapp where possible. And she uses an app on her phone to control her hearing aids. 

She's just told me she needs a new ipad and has asked me to help her make sure she gets the right one, but she's pretty clear what she needs - she just wants her choice validated.