“Is anyone else still predominantly using cash day to day?”
Yes. Germany.
Hm. Since covid, even my local bakery started taking cards. Even most corner shops for late night beers do. Kebab is usually still impossible, but that seems like the final frontier.
I'm starting to use more cash for daily spendings. The rise of surveillance pricing is terrible, better to hide qt least some of information from my bank.
I'm finding supermarkets locking their regular prices behind an app or loyalty card is getting out of control. Out of all the major supermarkets, ONLY Aldi has nothing of the sort currently.
Tesco and Sainsbury's will often have a £3 item that costs £6 without their loyalty card. Of course it's £3 in every other shop: it's not a special offer for members, it's a punishment price for those who don't give away their data.
A nice way to understand how much your data costs
Wow, I've never seen pricing that bad without a loyalty card in the US. Not saying it doesn't happen, quite often it's a 20-30% discount for the loyalty card, and occasionally more if you use the app (which I refuse, since I use Jenny's number for the loyalty card).
You're right to call it a punishment. Wonder if we can aggregate the loyalty app program somehow, like host the app in an Android VM on a VPS that anyone can then access, so the data they get is muddied.
Apparently there has been an uptick in people using cash in the UK because it helps with budgeting. Which has become more necessary since 60% of inflation started coming from corporate profiteering and four people became able to outcompete twenty million others in the market.
I'd love to but since tons of credit cards charge fees to the store, shops increase their prices on menus and items to account for this. On top of the fact that I receive points for purchasing, I'd be losing money if I were to be using cash alone.
since tons of credit cards charge fees to the store, shops increase their prices on menus and items to account for this.
why does this stop you from cash? you're still charged the same
That's their point, they don't get a corresponding discount for using cash.
Like Orange said, I'm not getting a discount by using cash. Prices are higher because of credit cards so I might as well use them to get 2 - 5% cashback/discount. Doesn't sound like much but it leads to hundreds of dollars in a single year for me.
Depending on the business, some actually charge less if you are upfront on paying cash
I would consider paying with cash again IF $100 bills weren't so much trouble.
It's hard to get a $100 bill. ATMs just don't spit them out. Many places refuse to take them. It's just hard to carry over $100 in cash without quickly having your wallet explode in size.
Back in the day $100 was like caring $1,000 now. You could get a lot done with $20 bills... You can burn through the majority of $100 just going to dinner and I also have no desire to manage all that cash at my house or hit up an ATM every other day.
Interesting, we have £50 notes in the UK but they essentially don't exist for most people. No cash machines will give you one, and shopkeepers mistrust them, although generally accept. 20s are the highest people deal with here usually.
All day, everyday! Freedom over convenience!
Some credit cards offer 2% cash back... (Not points) So it's hard to give that up when you get 2% off for just about every dollar you spend. Why wouldn't you put every dollar on card you would normally spend.
This doesn't work well if you are paying interest...
If you're fiscally savvy and don't overspend and can pay your balance in full every month and are not paying interest, this is a strong vote for choosing over cash.
However, without that....I see no benefit and would use more cash for all reasons in this thread.
This is sort of a scam though. Credit cards give rewards, but then charge the business for the processing fees. So the business needs to raise prices to cover the fees. So really no one is getting that 2% except for the card network. And if you don't use a card you lose 2%.
It is basically a protection racket. "It would be a shame if you didn't use our credit card and had to pay 2% more everywhere"
Yes, I know it is complicated. Handling cash also costs non-trivial amounts. I know that the EU has limits on fees (and that is why basically no credit cards have rewards there). I also know that some businesses see the fee as more of a marketing costs because higher spenders tend to use cards and people tend to spend more on cards.
Out in NYC, the bodegas all have a little plaquard saying that either 1: listed prices include a 2% credit card fee and you can save by using cash, or 2: listed prices may not match your final charge because they add a 2% fee on top for credit cards.
Which is the same thing effectively but it can be sometimes confusing if you're trying to watch for the fee.
Anecdotally, I have sometimes noticed the cashier will say a price, and then say a slightly different price when I pull out the card. So it's not like they always apply the fee regardless. At least some of the time anyway.
Not universal of course. I don't remember if that's also true for grocery stores, and it's probably not the case for big chains but honestly I don't know.
This is all perfect when you live in a responsible country where people pay their taxes. Instead, when you live in a place where paying your taxes is seen as something stupid, the less cash, the less space for tax evaders.
I loved it when COVID came and the government started giving all these businesses owners (bars, hairdressers, etc) a subside based on the profits they declared the year before COVID and they all went mad because they were getting 600€/month (which, ironically is the amount they declared to have earned monthly the year before COVID).
Plenty of cash only businesses in the UK that engage in this, although of course just because a business is cash only, doesn't mean they're a tax dodge.
IMO the two things are separate: it should be the tax office that does audits to catch this. It's not very hard to see a vape shop that makes £500 a month with two top model BMWs outside might be dodgy.
I encourage cash spending at a small business I operate. Average sale is around $150, 10% discount for using cash. About 25% of people pay cash.
It's very thinly veiled tax avoidance, but zero people have complained or called us out in it.
Been thinking of trying this. Thing is nobody uses cash anymore around here (Nordics). In supermarkets I know for sure I can use cash, but restaurants, bars or small business it's going to be hit and miss. I guess I'd have to endure the awkwardness of asking in every single place if they take cash or not
Businesses aren't legally required to accept cash?
No, same in the UK. How could you force them to take cash if they don't want to?
I visited the UK back in 2022 and I was pretty baffled at how you can universally "tap to pay". We visited a pub on the coast of Dorset where they wouldn't even accept cash as a mean of payment. All in all it was nice, because it meant not having to deal with a foreign currency at all, we spent 10 days just using electronic payment, so as a tourist I think it was a good experience.
In Germany, where I live, you're basically getting nowhere without cash, it's still very difficult to eat out or buy small food items like bread or a sandwich. There's also a culture of paying cash for many things, including pricier items like a second hand car! Shop cashiers usually don't even blink if you try to pay with a 100€ bill (except if you're coming super early and they don't have change available yet). It's not unusual for me to end up drawing a quarter to half my monthly salary in cash.
I first disliked it when I moved from France, but now I think it's actually good for the society. You always have some change to tip a waiter or give to a beggar, a coin for the cart at the supermarket, get something from a vending machine... Also I live in a very quiet area so getting mugged is very unlikely, making it not so scary to carry cash around.
I find it interesting that Germany is so far behind when it comes to IT and modernization. It's like you're stuck in 1990, even though you're surrounded by countries that have used chip payment cards since the early 2000s and contactless payments since the early to mid 2010s. Nobody here in Denmark has touched a fax machine in the last 15-20 years, and apparently Germans still fax things sometimes to this day??
hey don't belittle technological advancements in germany, people here at are the forefront of innovation: https://simple-fax.de/fax-ki
:'D
Yes, even the buses and vending machines and car park meters and public toilets have tap to pay. It is certainly very convenient but I think it does encourage spending more, and of course it means literally everything you do is tracked. Luckily I've found that most places still do accept cash but there are definitely a few who don't.
The cash I have on hand comes exclusively from playing pub gigs in a band. That is still very much a cash-driven economy where I am. When I accumulate enough, I usually wind up spending it on music gear, so I don't think this hobby of mine is major wealth-builder. But while many businesses are moving away from cash, it seems music stores are used to people like me and still allow fairly hefty cash transactions.
The other day I was settling my tab at the pub and the guy hands me a machine. I say, I'll pay by cash thanks. He says really?!? Dude, you literally just handed me cash for the gig tonight. Oh yeah…
I actually started with it this week. It is partially due to privacy but also because I lost a sense for value. It is really easy to press a button online and pay say 20 euro. Not that I am irresponsible with money but the numbers on your bank account feel so meaningless.
I'm nor a cash-only convert, but I have some anecdotal evidence for you.
I've visited Boston five times in the past thirty years. Every single time I used my debit card at Thanuel Hall for food, my card was later used for fraud. Always caught and never a big inconvenience beyond replacing my card, but still not ideal. I only ever use cash there now.
Online shopping, before the Amazon monopoly on e-commerce, my card would get compromised every few months.
Now I use privacy.com for all transactions that allow it, and its amazing how often those cards are stolen. Thanks to the way the service works, the stolen cards are useless to scammers or thieves, but my declined transaction filter has a few charges declined each month.
My point being that if you want to avoid fraud, and you can do it, cash is king.
In the US, I've started paying in cash to combat the aggressive tip buttons (your options are: 20%, 30%, 40%, or Other). With cash, I feel free to provide a reasonable tip for whatever service and they see it and appear appreciative, even if it's not the 20% the little tip screen attempts to strong arm you into.
I also want to pay more in cash to reward businesses for still allowing you to pay in cash as I'm noticing more are going cashless. I'm occasionally reliant on cash so I don't want to end up stranded on those occasions where I can only pay cash, so definitely want to ensure the option remains open. The privacy is a benefit too of course.
I think at the moment I mostly buy "important" stuff in cash and everyday stuff with card. Important like a new computer or something, because I'd plan to have that computer for a while and don't want it easily traced to me. Everyday stuff like food because, while I completely understand not wanting the state/banks/etc to know anything about you, I personally don't care too much if the state knows what I eat. Would be nice to eventually become one of those people with no footprint at all though.
Anyone in a 14 eyes country is essentially impossible to achieve zero footprint, but assuming they're not actively looking into your network packets or searching for you on CCTV its feasible to have a relatively low footprint. I'm essentially trying to eliminate as far as practical, any data points I'm just giving away for free for no reason, especially to corporations and advertisers.
A computer is something you'd want to buy with a credit card, as they often come with additional free warranties for various mishaps
My bank recently got rid of their own contactless payment app and now I am forced to use Google pay. You have to accept Google's privacy terms and they'll have access to all your transactions. No thanks.
Beyond that I quite like using tech. Still waiting for bitcoin to take off after more than a decade. For budgeting you can use programs and it'll notify you real time on your expenditures.
This decision was helped by moving to GrapheneOS and losing Google Pay, definitely. (And Degoogling for other reasons at the same time). If I have to carry a card I may as well carry cash, a few folded notes are the same footprint as a card and as I mentioned, I try not to break notes if I don't have to, so I'm not carrying change often.
I love the occasional "thanks for not requiring change!" that comes from it.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)