How often do you use cash ?

[doctor shark]

I pretty much use cash for 90%+ of my purchases: I keep track better of things that way and I've had my credit and debit cards compromised way too many times, so I prefer to use a payment method less susceptible to that. This can be challenging given I'm in the Netherlands, but maybe the fact that an unacceptably increasing number of businesses refuse cash (under European and Dutch rules, this shouldn't happen, but it's not very enforced) make me much more insistent on paying with it (and I don't, as a rule, frequent businesses that refuse cash). Public transit doesn't take cash on the bus or train, but I do have a prepaid transport card that I can at least load with coins at train stations and can make do with that. I also don't pay with contactless, because I simply don't trust it (especially the fact of not requiring a PIN validation for purchases), so paying with card is normally a bit more involved than paying with cash: hence, the cash is faster.

Most banks here actually don't have their own ATMs anymore, but they've partnered for a network called "Geldmaat", and there at least aren't additional fees to withdraw, though you're limited to €50 notes at most (and I like the pretty, green hundreds). The lowest coins are €0.05 (which also is borderline iffy legally), but I make it work. The 1- and 2-cent coins were still very common in Germany and Luxembourg (and maybe less so, but still used a lot in France), so if I want to spend them, I need to go there.

[linguistcat]

I rarely use cash unless I know I'm going somewhere that only takes cash. While I've heard some people budget better using "cash only", physical money tends to burn holes in my pockets. But then again, most people see cash as a "real" thing while bank account numbers are ephemeral or "not as real" and I just see all money as equally abstracted. I guess it's just a matter of not wanting to carry "extra" stuff around, so I'd rather use physical money to get things I actually want as soon as possible and that's bad for budgeting. But if I have it all digital, I have to look at the numbers and actually make things add up, and I don't have the pressure of "extra stuff".

That said, if I didn't have access to physical money, like it all went to electronic funds, I'd revolt. I love the convenience of electronic funds but I'm not dumb enough to think that if all money was electronic, that wouldn't be used for evil by the government. You shut down someone's accounts and not only is any money they had gone but now they have no way to get/keep more. So while I rarely use it, it's important to have the ability to use it.

[Linguoboy]

For a while, I was using cash very rarely. I'd keep maybe $20 on me for those rare times when, say, I'd be buying something from a stand at a street festival or farmers market. Now it seems that pretty much anyone vending on a street accepts alternative forms of payment. I even used my debit card at the local Greek Orthodox parish festival yesterday. The main holdout I can think of around here are the paleteros and eloteros but I suspect they'll give in eventually.

However, the situation has changed recently because I often go out drinking with friends of a weekend and some of the bars they like to frequent are cash only (for tax-dodgery purposes, I assume). So now I try to carry $40 or so at all times in case we end up in one of these establishments.

[alynnidalar]

I use cash for two purposes: church giving on Sunday (we're respectably behind-the-times; while we can handle checks, we don't have any sort of electronic deposit system set up) and if I find myself at a farmers' market or obscure shop where for some reason they aren't set up with Square (a popular credit card processing company that, among other services, has card scanners you can conveniently plug into your phone--very, very popular at festivals and markets around here). So all-in-all, very little--I stop by an ATM once a month or so and take out a few twenties, and that lasts just fine.

I live and die by my budgeting app, which automatically syncs with my accounts/cards, so cash is more trouble than it's worth for me. I don't even use cash to repay family members anymore, we're all on Venmo now, which is wonderfully convenient.

[Linguoboy]

I live and die by my budgeting app, which automatically syncs with my accounts/cards, so cash is more trouble than it's worth for me. I don't even use cash to repay family members anymore, we're all on Venmo now, which is wonderfully convenient.

I get endless guff from my friends for my refusal to use Venmo. It annoys me no end that we have 24,509 different payment apps nowadays and they refuse to play nice with each other. I should be able to Zelle you some money which you can receive with Venmo or PayPal or (god forbid) Meta Pay or whatever you like. But, no, if you don't have the app I use then I have to download another, create another account whose password I'll forget and which I have to monitor for hacking for the rest of time.

[Raphael]

I get endless guff from my friends for my refusal to use Venmo. It annoys me no end that we have 24,509 different payment apps nowadays and they refuse to play nice with each other. I should be able to Zelle you some money which you can receive with Venmo or PayPal or (god forbid) Meta Pay or whatever you like. But, no, if you don't have the app I use then I have to download another, create another account whose password I'll forget and which I have to monitor for hacking for the rest of time.

Which reminds me, I'd love to see a payment app that's not owned or co-owned by some of the world's most toxic brollionaires.

[MacAnDàil]

I get endless guff from my friends for my refusal to use Venmo. It annoys me no end that we have 24,509 different payment apps nowadays and they refuse to play nice with each other. I should be able to Zelle you some money which you can receive with Venmo or PayPal or (god forbid) Meta Pay or whatever you like. But, no, if you don't have the app I use then I have to download another, create another account whose password I'll forget and which I have to monitor for hacking for the rest of time.

Which reminds me, I'd love to see a payment app that's not owned or co-owned by some of the world's most toxic brollionaires.

Is that what cash is?

[Raphael]

Which reminds me, I'd love to see a payment app that's not owned or co-owned by some of the world's most toxic brollionaires.

Is that what cash is?

Kinda complicated to send cash to someone on a different continent.

[MacAnDàil]

Which reminds me, I'd love to see a payment app that's not owned or co-owned by some of the world's most toxic brollionaires.

Is that what cash is?

Kinda complicated to send cash to someone on a different continent.

That's true.

[Man in Space]

I get endless guff from my friends for my refusal to use Venmo. It annoys me no end that we have 24,509 different payment apps nowadays and they refuse to play nice with each other. I should be able to Zelle you some money which you can receive with Venmo or PayPal or (god forbid) Meta Pay or whatever you like. But, no, if you don't have the app I use then I have to download another, create another account whose password I'll forget and which I have to monitor for hacking for the rest of time.

Which reminds me, I'd love to see a payment app that's not owned or co-owned by some of the world's most toxic brollionaires.

Hawala, the OG Cash App.

[Raphael]

I'm a little bit older than you, and I don't think I remember ever seeing anyone use checks.

We call them "cheques" round here, and my wife still gets them from her clients, many of whom are elderly and haven't yet migrated to digital banking.

It's not a cheques vs. digital banking thing here. Doing payments by simply telling your bank to directly transfer money from your account to someone else's account was the norm here long before digital banking became a thing among regular people (though I guess internally banks have long used computers for processing that kind of thing). You filled out little forms with the recipient's account information, the amount of money, and the reason for sending the money, and put those forms into boxes at your bank. You can still do it that way if you want.

I just got to help a relative who doesn't do digital banking with some accounting stuff, and got to take a photo of some of those forms. So, this is how Germany used to do direct money transfers for a long time, and how people who haven't taken up digital banking still usually do it (some parts censored for privacy reasons):

germanueberweisungsvordrucke.jpg (238 KiB) Viewed 1494 times

[Arzena]

I've lived in Austin, Texas, since 2011 and the most uses for cash were: drinks at bars and tipping drag queens, paying the bus fare (I havent done that since like 2016 thanks to a smartphone transit app), and laundry machines in apartment complexes. At present, the only use for cash is controlling my spending at bars when going out and tipping drag queens.

When I visited New York City in 2021, I had a moment of culture shock because I noticed more opportunities to use cash and more businesses that were cash only (this is a rarity in my experience in ATX, ie, my local corner store lets you tip their employees in cash, but heaven forbid if you try to pay for your coffee with it...)!

[doctor shark]

I've lived in Austin, Texas, since 2011 and the most uses for cash were: drinks at bars and tipping drag queens, paying the bus fare (I havent done that since like 2016 thanks to a smartphone transit app), and laundry machines in apartment complexes. At present, the only use for cash is controlling my spending at bars when going out and tipping drag queens.

When I visited New York City in 2021, I had a moment of culture shock because I noticed more opportunities to use cash and more businesses that were cash only (this is a rarity in my experience in ATX, ie, my local corner store lets you tip their employees in cash, but heaven forbid if you try to pay for your coffee with it...)!

I know in a few places, and I think New York City is one, cashless businesses are illegal. There might be other reasons (tax-related) for businesses that way, but electronic payment systems can be difficult to manage in the US: a lot of them take off quite substantial cuts of transactions, at least compared to interchange fees here in the Netherlands.

Oddly enough, one of the main kinds of business that operates mostly with cash here is the coffee shop (which totally doesn't sell coffee). Many do accept cards, but because of the gray status of green stuff, banks are very skittish about dealing with them (one bank charging huge monthly fees to coffee shops made headlines), so they often prefer cash.

At least in Italy, it was often that card was accepted in many places, but businesses were just as happy to also accept your cash. They'd phased out the 1- and 2-cent coins as well, so just like the Netherlands. The places I stayed wanted prompt payment in cash, though.

(Also, if I don't pay cash, how else can I get unique and unusual coins? Need to feed another of my expensive hobbies. :P)

I just got to help a relative who doesn't do digital banking with some accounting stuff, and got to take a photo of some of those forms. So, this is how Germany used to do direct money transfers for a long time, and how people who haven't taken up digital banking still usually do it (some parts censored for privacy reasons):

Oh, I used those in Germany a few times. They also existed in Luxembourg, but they weren't commonly used except for charities who would send the pre-filled giro forms.

On the other hand, checks are not rare in the US: many of my tax refunds have been issued in check form. That said, online banking and bank transfers are sometimes difficult, so I still have a US checkbook in case I need to, for example, order a transcript, pay a tax bill, or order things that won't accept my Dutch credit card or that charge substantially more for payment with my US debit card. Doesn't always work for everything, though: some government services, like when I needed an apostilled birth certificate from my state of birth, only accept postal money orders. (At least my brother was legally able to place the order on my behalf!)

[Linguoboy]

I know in a few places, and I think New York City is one, cashless businesses are illegal. There might be other reasons (tax-related) for businesses that way, but electronic payment systems can be difficult to manage in the US: a lot of them take off quite substantial cuts of transactions, at least compared to interchange fees here in the Netherlands.

I don't know what the story is in NYC, but here in Chicago these debates seem linked to concerns about equity of access. According to FDIC data, 4.5% of US households are "unbanked" (meaning without a single checking or savings account) and about three times that number are "underbanked", whatever that means exactly. Some fraction of the unbanked probably use payment apps of some sort but I suspect the majority are still heavily reliant on case. Moreover, it's the most vulnerable--street people, undocumented migrants, the currently or recently incarcerated, etc.--who are most likely to fall into these categories. So being entirely cashless is, in effect, discriminatory and is often viewed as another toxic consequence of gentrification.

Locally, I saw this come up when a new startup took over the coffee shop in the library where I work and announced they would not accept cash payments. However, the grumblings were short-lived (as was the startup, as it turned out.)

On the other hand, checks are not rare in the US: many of my tax refunds have been issued in check form.

I just signed some forms to transfer a substantial amount of my retirement funds from one financial services company to another. Apparently this is all being done by cheque. (I won't see it, though, as it's being delivered directly to the new company's headquarters.) My new advisor also arranged for a banker to give me a sales pitch. I listened patiently to his attempts to sell me a premium credit card I have no intention of acquiring but I had to interrupt him when he started describing the kind of services a "personal banker" could offer and chose as his example expediting a chequebook to me on vacation. "Sorry, I haven't had a chequebook in over a decade," I said, suppressing a laugh. It's like hearing a computer hardware rep brag about modem speeds.

[Raphael]

I know in a few places, and I think New York City is one, cashless businesses are illegal. There might be other reasons (tax-related) for businesses that way, but electronic payment systems can be difficult to manage in the US: a lot of them take off quite substantial cuts of transactions, at least compared to interchange fees here in the Netherlands.

I don't know what the story is in NYC, but here in Chicago these debates seem linked to concerns about equity of access. According to FDIC data, 4.5% of US households are "unbanked" (meaning without a single checking or savings account) and about three times that number are "underbanked", whatever that means exactly.

Yes, my late uncle, though not from the USA, was in that category, and though I never saw him using checks/cheques, I know that he was sent them in the last period of his life.

[Linguoboy]

Yes, my late uncle, though not from the USA, was in that category, and though I never saw him using checks/cheques, I know that he was sent them in the last period of his life.

Talking with my advisor afterwards, he told me about discovering how his late grandmother used to hide her money behind family photos. I thought he meant framed photos, but he was like, no, in photo albums. They had to go through every single one of them and ended up scraping together nearly $2000.