Anyone else still pay by cash?

MEM62

Yep, almost half my spend is in cash. I am not comfortable unless I am carrying some wedge. Yes, I am a dinosaur.

Prior to COVID almost all my in-person spend was cash. It was how I budgeted. I withdrew my spending money once a week and when it was gone, it was gone. However, that changed when a lot of places stopped accepting cash during COVID to the point where it is now 50/50 card / cash.

subjecttocontract

The assumption is that we all carry phones. Most of the time I often don't have mine.....to big for my pocket and I leave it at home or in a car. So paying by phone would be almost impossible.....I've never tried it. Do have credit & debit cards. But the secret trick everyone is missing is that it's often best for you if you can persuade somebody else to pay.......then it's their problem.

Rob5342

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011840#Comment_82011840

I've done that before. I found something in a christmas market that I wanted to buy but they only accepted cash so I went off to find a cash machine, on the way I saw the same thing on another stall that accepted cards too so I saved myself the effort and bought it there instead.

jimjames

I can't remember the last time I drew cash from ATM. I've got £10 note in my wallet for emergency, it's been there since the beginning of the year. Everything else is card or phone payment. Selling an item online last week, person wanted to collect with £500 cash, I only wanted to have payment by bank transfer. Too much risk of dodgy notes with large wad of cash.

Section62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011811#Comment_82011811

When people say that they carry cash "for emergencies" and claim they can use it when the power goes out, they cannot, tills do not work, without power shops shut, when the tills go down shops shut. They say "What if you loose your phone?", then I could use the card in my wallet, if I lost my wallet I would have lost the cash anyway if I carried it so that is an equally pointless question.

The claim that shops shut when the tills go down is not entirely true. It depends on the type of shop and the management.

Many smaller shops who routinely use cash will carry on trading through power cuts - if you are only buying a few items and the staff have retained the ability to add some numbers together in their head (or using a piece of paper, or the calculator on their phone) then they can work out how much you need to pay and even calculate the correct amount of change. Some shops don't have tills.

There have also been cases, some of them publicised in local media, where customers already in large supermarkets were allowed to finish their shop during a power cut and were invited to estimate how much their shopping was worth and pay cash for that amount. I'm not suggesting every supermarket would allow people to do this in every case, but the claim "they cannot, tills do not work, without power shops shut, when the tills go down shops shut." is not always true.

I don't use cash much, but keep about £30 handy "for emergencies".

I also wouldn't be in the position "if I lost my wallet I would have lost the cash anyway if I carried it" because one of the emergencies I plan for is loss of my wallet/phone… so I'm smart enough not to keep the cash in the same place as my cards and phone. Maybe it is a product of living in a rural area where emergencies and power cuts were more often part of life than when living in towns and cities?

fatbelly

I know lots of people who still work in cash, for the reasons you give. I personally hardly use the stuff but there is a cash-only shop where I live, and some market stalls only take cash so I do keep a bit on me.

My wife however still prefers cash and only uses her cards for online purchases, mostly.

Nasqueron

Haven't paid cash for anything for many years, cashback on the credit card means I pay for everything on that, very easy to budget as everything is on the card and statement, payment fixed so I get up to 56 days interest free and the money sits in a bank account earning interest.

The "cash is king" mantra has long been wrong, cash costs businesses more (unless they are tax avoiding, which I assume all cash only businesses are) and there is too much of a risk for me to potentially lose my money in a theft. I have an absolute emergency £5 in my bike bag which is for if I was somehow unable to pay for a coffee and cake without card but places I stop at I know take cards.

Enzo_L

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011806#Comment_82011806

I've found the opposite, very often.

I pay in cash on the bus and it is all done in an instant, whereas the bus is regularly held up by people faffing with their phones trying to pay.

The other thing that holds the bus up is a certain type of old lady who appear to be stunned when the driver tells them they have to produce their free bus pass and then they start to look everywhere for it, but that's a different issue entirely.

moneysavepound12

Not really, last time I used it was when I went to Turkey last year

Rob5342

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82011952#Comment_82011952

The chip shop near me is cash only, presumably so they can keep things off the books. It means I spend less there, I'll go to the shop next door to get some drinks and come cashback and then limit my spend in the chipshop to the cash I got out, whereas if the chip shop took card I'd probably buy the drinks in there and get a few extra things too.