Going Cashless

I am about as cashless as I feasibly can be. I often don't even take out my actual wallet with me, and instead just use Apple Pay on either my phone or my watch to pay for things. Everything I can possibly put through either my Amex or my Barclaycard Cashback gets done so: if someone wants to send me money I'll ask for it to be done through PayPal or bank transfer, the local cab company takes cards through its app, takeaways go through Just Eat so on card, the bus company takes contactless and pretty much every shop takes cards at this point. If I'm travelling somewhere far from home I'll keep £20 on me in case I need to get a taxi or something somewhere familiar but otherwise I rely pretty much all the time on cards.

I hate carrying cash, find the odd occasion I actually need it incredibly annoying and want rid of it as soon as possible whenever I do have it, basically. The people who rely on it for everything utterly confuse me because doing so involves making your life less convenient and more annoying for no real tangible benefit. The way I do it I get paid to spend money in about the most convenient way imaginable.

Anyone who's known me on here for a while will know I don't say it lightly when I say I actually prefer cheques to cash...

bluffer wrote: »

cashless in theory is fine until the technology doesnt work. imagine the visa issue a couple of weeks ago but this time mastercard going down as well.


always have some cash and a visa and a mastercard so you are never stuck.

The Visa issue was already a surprise as it is; the amount of downtime Visa has for the amount of transactions it processes each day is incredible. It's also more centralised compared to MasterCard; if both MasterCard AND Visa went down at once I wouldn't be worrying about paying for stuff, I'd be worried about what kind of nuclear weapon's EMP burst knocked out telecoms all over Europe.

I don't use cash at all. Except, maybe once every few months when I visit my parent's local Indian takeaway who still charge for card payments (through the guise of a cash discount).


Working in London, I've noticed it has become acceptable to pay for any amount by card. I remember the unwritten rule used to be £10, then it became £5, then £1, now it seems to be no minimum.


I've paid for a single carrot in Tesco (9p) by contactless card. It was much quicker and easier than paying with cash (no change to count).

I hate cash. I love Applepay and contactless, i'd be happy to never have to pay in cash ever again. My windows would be filthy though. Don't think my window cleaner will be accepting cards anytime soon.