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I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to mo

I've been "cash only" for 8 months now and I love it. Of course I need a credit card if I buy something on Amazon or a one-off web store, but the point is to move as many transactions offline as possible. There are so many privacy benefits to using cash, but one that really resonates with me is the physical nature of it. When you pay for something with cash, you can feel the transaction of money exchanging hands and it can have a psychological effect to prevent frivolous spending. Or at the very least, further reinforce that YES we are spending money! Also, store clerks, cab drivers, any anyone who accepts tips always love getting cash.

scholia 11y ago
On the plus side, using a card gives you a good list so you can see what you've spent. This makes accounting simpler than using a cash book and accumulating receipts. On the minus side, I use contactless ("wave to pay") all the time now, and find I rarely look to see how much I'm spending on small transactions. Even with larger transactions, it doesn't feel like "real money".
- realusername 11y ago
  I think it's the opposite for me, using cash makes it way easier to get an idea of how much I spend. I use the ATM three times per month with 100 pounds each so 300 pound/month in normal expenses. With card I would need to to an addition of everything per month.
  - Ntrails 11y ago
    My credit card bill this month is £500, That seems easier than "i had n trips to the ATM plus I think I had £30 in my wallet from last month and I got £25 from donna for the booze we bought in France over the summer"? Not only that, I can download a monthly spreadsheet of all my transactions, pivot them into a simple table and so on and so forth. Data out the wazoo. £105 a month on tube fares. £235 a month on lunch. £17 on fuel. Knowing where I spent it is as useful if not more so than how much I spent in total. Then of course there is the free money I get from spending on a card. It all seems like a no brainer. And I never need to go to an ATM. And most the time I just lean my wallet against a card reader and mosey onwards. I'm not sold.
    - Symbiote 11y ago
      My bank (Danske Bank) even does that for me. When I log in, it shows a bar chart of spending categorized for the previous 30 days (housing, transport, food etc). Changing the range changes what transactions are summarized, and what transactions are shown in detail below the graph. Clicking a graph category further filters and shows the transactions that match, with the graph changing to more specific sub-categories (rent, water, electricity etc if I click housing). The categories are set automatically, but can be overridden or a transaction can be divided between several, and that remembered for future transactions. I'm impressed that a bank produced this system!
      - scholia 11y ago
        I wish a UK bank did that! (Maybe one does, but I haven't heard about it....)
  - brewdad 11y ago
    True, but when the time comes where you need to cut expenses for some reason, do you know where that 300 pounds is going? That is the advantage he was getting at. I download my transactions weekly from my CC company and can easily see I've been spending way too much money eating out the past two months.
- pixl97 11y ago
  > On the plus side, using a card gives --you-- everyone a good list so you can see what you've spent FTFY. The modern world seems to be one in which business, governments, and hackers know exactly what we are doing.
  - scholia 11y ago
    True ;-)
brightball 11y ago
Or even better on the frivolous spending, the "I don't have enough on me right now" situation. If it's really important, you'll come back. If you need to trim your purchase from the grocery store to match what's in your wallet, the stuff you didn't really need factors in. It makes you MUCH more conscious of how much things cost because you don't want to get to the checkout and be short.
- b2384912 11y ago
  >I don't have enough on me right now Yeah I remember that situation. I accidentally left my card at home. I didn't have lunch that day and I barely managed to drive home with an almost empty fuel tank. To me looking at the balance on my phone is far quicker than counting all the damn coins. 1 cent coins are such a huge annoyance that I'd rather throw them into the trash than actually pay with them.
rickdale 11y ago
There are so many privacy benefits to using cash I like to use cash a lot too. And the privacy benefits are true sometimes, but more and more places want your information when you purchase anything. I bought a weed wacker the other day and they wanted my address and phone and email. I never say no, but instead reply with, "555 Fake Street" which is obnoxious, but its like you don't need my damn address to sell me lawn equipment. Amazingly, most people dont understand why anyone would give false information to a random business.
- walterbell 11y ago
  How many people use 555-areacode-1212 for loyalty card search at the cash register? It's an offline equivalent of bugmenot.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    <areacode>-555-1212 is the correct order.
JumpCrisscross 11y ago
Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. Mentally, money in my account is "my money". Cash I've withdrawn feels like already-spent money. Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Might be a generation-to-generation thing.
- liveify 11y ago
  I'm definitely the same here. Taking cash out at an ATM feels the same as spending it. It's spent money to me.
- grimmdude 11y ago
  Yep, I share your same mindset. Whenever I take money out of the ATM I typically only take what I need right now because once it's in my wallet it's already spent.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Same effect, different reason. Once it's in my wallet, it's already spent by my spouse. I might actually spend as much as 10% of my cash withdrawals myself. I can reliably keep a single $10 bill in there, as the "didn't want to clean you out"-based guilt prevents the very last note in there from being taken. Of course, now the spouse just takes the debit card from my wallet instead, so I might have to start keeping more cash in there, in case I go to pay for something one day and it's not there.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  > Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Which is fine! Here's what you do: allot a certain amount of cash to discretionary expenses each month. You take that money out at the beginning of each month (actually in my case, twice a month) and then use it. And when you run out you're out. What you've just done is used physical cash to put a hard ceiling on your discretionary spending. This turns what are normally variable expenses into a fixed item in your budget, which makes it a heck of a lot easier to account for.
  - 11y ago
darkclarity 11y ago
Similar for me, but I resisted using cards in real life from the beginning. I use them exclusively for internet transactions. I just don't like the idea of giving up a freedom of anonymity, yet I notice others are seemingly jumping at the chance. I'm not sure what I would do if I lived in a city where electronic transactions are a requirement for public transport. I guess I would walk as much as possible... or even move to an alternative place.
- mikegioia 11y ago
  I'm not sure what I would do if I lived in a city where electronic transactions are a requirement for public transport. Step into my office ;) There are many things you can do, walking is the best one. You can pay for Metrocards in NYC with cash though. The machines still accept them.

scholia 11y ago

On the plus side, using a card gives you a good list so you can see what you've spent. This makes accounting simpler than using a cash book and accumulating receipts. On the minus side, I use contactless ("wave to pay") all the time now, and find I rarely look to see how much I'm spending on small transactions. Even with larger transactions, it doesn't feel like "real money".

realusername 11y ago
I think it's the opposite for me, using cash makes it way easier to get an idea of how much I spend. I use the ATM three times per month with 100 pounds each so 300 pound/month in normal expenses. With card I would need to to an addition of everything per month.
- Ntrails 11y ago
  My credit card bill this month is £500, That seems easier than "i had n trips to the ATM plus I think I had £30 in my wallet from last month and I got £25 from donna for the booze we bought in France over the summer"? Not only that, I can download a monthly spreadsheet of all my transactions, pivot them into a simple table and so on and so forth. Data out the wazoo. £105 a month on tube fares. £235 a month on lunch. £17 on fuel. Knowing where I spent it is as useful if not more so than how much I spent in total. Then of course there is the free money I get from spending on a card. It all seems like a no brainer. And I never need to go to an ATM. And most the time I just lean my wallet against a card reader and mosey onwards. I'm not sold.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    My bank (Danske Bank) even does that for me. When I log in, it shows a bar chart of spending categorized for the previous 30 days (housing, transport, food etc). Changing the range changes what transactions are summarized, and what transactions are shown in detail below the graph. Clicking a graph category further filters and shows the transactions that match, with the graph changing to more specific sub-categories (rent, water, electricity etc if I click housing). The categories are set automatically, but can be overridden or a transaction can be divided between several, and that remembered for future transactions. I'm impressed that a bank produced this system!
    - scholia 11y ago
      I wish a UK bank did that! (Maybe one does, but I haven't heard about it....)
- brewdad 11y ago
  True, but when the time comes where you need to cut expenses for some reason, do you know where that 300 pounds is going? That is the advantage he was getting at. I download my transactions weekly from my CC company and can easily see I've been spending way too much money eating out the past two months.
pixl97 11y ago
> On the plus side, using a card gives --you-- everyone a good list so you can see what you've spent FTFY. The modern world seems to be one in which business, governments, and hackers know exactly what we are doing.
- scholia 11y ago
  True ;-)

brightball 11y ago

Or even better on the frivolous spending, the "I don't have enough on me right now" situation. If it's really important, you'll come back. If you need to trim your purchase from the grocery store to match what's in your wallet, the stuff you didn't really need factors in. It makes you MUCH more conscious of how much things cost because you don't want to get to the checkout and be short.

b2384912 11y ago
>I don't have enough on me right now Yeah I remember that situation. I accidentally left my card at home. I didn't have lunch that day and I barely managed to drive home with an almost empty fuel tank. To me looking at the balance on my phone is far quicker than counting all the damn coins. 1 cent coins are such a huge annoyance that I'd rather throw them into the trash than actually pay with them.

rickdale 11y ago

There are so many privacy benefits to using cash I like to use cash a lot too. And the privacy benefits are true sometimes, but more and more places want your information when you purchase anything. I bought a weed wacker the other day and they wanted my address and phone and email. I never say no, but instead reply with, "555 Fake Street" which is obnoxious, but its like you don't need my damn address to sell me lawn equipment. Amazingly, most people dont understand why anyone would give false information to a random business.

walterbell 11y ago
How many people use 555-areacode-1212 for loyalty card search at the cash register? It's an offline equivalent of bugmenot.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  <areacode>-555-1212 is the correct order.

JumpCrisscross 11y ago

Funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. Mentally, money in my account is "my money". Cash I've withdrawn feels like already-spent money. Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Might be a generation-to-generation thing.

liveify 11y ago
I'm definitely the same here. Taking cash out at an ATM feels the same as spending it. It's spent money to me.
grimmdude 11y ago
Yep, I share your same mindset. Whenever I take money out of the ATM I typically only take what I need right now because once it's in my wallet it's already spent.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Same effect, different reason. Once it's in my wallet, it's already spent by my spouse. I might actually spend as much as 10% of my cash withdrawals myself. I can reliably keep a single $10 bill in there, as the "didn't want to clean you out"-based guilt prevents the very last note in there from being taken. Of course, now the spouse just takes the debit card from my wallet instead, so I might have to start keeping more cash in there, in case I go to pay for something one day and it's not there.
zzalpha 11y ago
> Since it's unaccountable, I tend to spend it more frivolously. Which is fine! Here's what you do: allot a certain amount of cash to discretionary expenses each month. You take that money out at the beginning of each month (actually in my case, twice a month) and then use it. And when you run out you're out. What you've just done is used physical cash to put a hard ceiling on your discretionary spending. This turns what are normally variable expenses into a fixed item in your budget, which makes it a heck of a lot easier to account for.
- 11y ago

darkclarity 11y ago

Similar for me, but I resisted using cards in real life from the beginning. I use them exclusively for internet transactions. I just don't like the idea of giving up a freedom of anonymity, yet I notice others are seemingly jumping at the chance. I'm not sure what I would do if I lived in a city where electronic transactions are a requirement for public transport. I guess I would walk as much as possible... or even move to an alternative place.

mikegioia 11y ago
I'm not sure what I would do if I lived in a city where electronic transactions are a requirement for public transport. Step into my office ;) There are many things you can do, walking is the best one. You can pay for Metrocards in NYC with cash though. The machines still accept them.