Are we ready for a 'cashless' society ?

[TonyDown]

I do the same as @Charlie

 I keep a stash of 5's and 10's.

I always carry cash with me.

Some folks carry large amounts of cash on them.  A friend's father carries thousands because "you'll never know when you'll need it".  He is quite wealthy.  He's probably an anomaly, yet I expect there are other folks that do the same.

To me, cash seems like a safety net as a back up if other methods fail for some reason. 

 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

Here's a summary of every business I visited or will visit today:

1. Breakfast at a diner.  Restaurant charges 2.5% for credit cards.  I paid with cash.

2. Bought hair products at a salon.  Solon quoted me 30% off if I paid in cash.  I paid with cash.  (Yes, 30% not 3%)

3. Car detail.  Business charges 8% for credit cards.  I paid with cash. 

4. Gay bar for a drink (TGIF!).  Bar only accepts cash.  I paid with cash. 

5.  Haircut/wax/manicure/pedicure/body scrub.  The provider charges 10% to accept credit cards.  I will pay in cash, as usual. 

I am glad I always have cash on hand to take advantage of these savings.  I only allow my tenants to only pay me via cash, check, or money other.  Right now, they all choose cash.  Therefore, I always have enough cash to avoid visits to the ATM or bank, and I can grab these great cash discounts that are more than my Rewards Credit Cards can offer me.

Edited May 9 by Vegas_Millennial

[Nightowl]

The only time I use cash now is when that’s the only form of payment accepted for an erotic massage.

[TonyDown]

I paid cash for my smog test last Friday, and for therapeutic massage Thursday.

[+ purplekow]

To my mind, credit cards and cash apps are a means of authorities keeping track of what I am buying, where I am buying it and how often.  While I have no reason to care who knows what I buy, I am not generally in favor of giving out such information.  If I want to buy a sex toy, why should anyone with access to my credit information know about that.  I was recently scolded by an escort for using cash.  He wanted an app payment.  He grudingly has been accepting cash but he claims it is extra work for him to go to the bank and there is the possibility of loss of cash.  On the other hand, I have chastised him about not having cash.  I guess when it is usually the case that someone else is paying , that there is no reason to have cash for small items.   

In 1969, in freshman English I wrote a short story about a time when you needed indentification to pay with cash.  The protagonist of the story did not have traditional identification and tried convincing the salesperson that his autographed Joe Namath poster that he was carrying should be more than adequate to prove his identity.  more than half a century later, the plot of my story has come to pass except very few people know who Joe Namath is.  In 1969 he was one of the most famous people in the US.  

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

I arrived in Vienna last night.  The popular cafe I went to this morning does not accept credit or debit cards.... Cash only

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

I'm still in Vienna, at the hustler bar Cafe Alte Lampe.  They only take cash... No credit or debit cards

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

On 1/21/2025 at 8:02 PM, TonyDown said:

I do the same as @Charlie

 I keep a stash of 5's and 10's.

I always carry cash with me.

Some folks carry large amounts of cash on them.  A friend's father carries thousands because "you'll never know when you'll need it".  He is quite wealthy.  He's probably an anomaly, yet I expect there are other folks that do the same.

To me, cash seems like a safety net as a back up if other methods fail for some reason. 

 

I always thought a credit card was a backup, to finance something I needed in an emergency if I didn't have enough cash on me.

[Frequentflier]

On 5/9/2025 at 4:18 PM, Vegas_Millennial said:

Here's a summary of every business I visited or will visit today:

1. Breakfast at a diner.  Restaurant charges 2.5% for credit cards.  I paid with cash.

2. Bought hair products at a salon.  Solon quoted me 30% off if I paid in cash.  I paid with cash.  (Yes, 30% not 3%)

3. Car detail.  Business charges 8% for credit cards.  I paid with cash. 

4. Gay bar for a drink (TGIF!).  Bar only accepts cash.  I paid with cash. 

5.  Haircut/wax/manicure/pedicure/body scrub.  The provider charges 10% to accept credit cards.  I will pay in cash, as usual. 

I am glad I always have cash on hand to take advantage of these savings.  I only allow my tenants to only pay me via cash, check, or money other.  Right now, they all choose cash.  Therefore, I always have enough cash to avoid visits to the ATM or bank, and I can grab these great cash discounts that are more than my Rewards Credit Cards can offer me.

Nice. You saved a bunch being able to pay with cash. 

I read that Colorado passed a law limiting how much a merchant can charge for accepting a credit card. Note that they don't have to accept credit cards, just that if they do high fees aren't possible. Fee has to be disclosed prominently. Limit is 2% or actual amount business pays whichever is less. No fee on debit card. A friend has a Maserati and his dealership charges a high percent to pay by credit card. Like what? He now pays for service, which as we know can be high on cars like a Maserati, with cash. He says he wants them to have to deal with taking cash to a bank. My thinking is, don't buy a Maserati. Haha.

It is easier to evade taxes by accepting cash. And now that the IRS has fewer agents its even less likely an auditor will show up and be able to figure out using other data from a business whether all the revenue has been reported. As with the above examples there are still plenty of ways to pay others with cash; recipients who are likely also avoiding taxes.

For tenants I started using a service years ago that automatically pulls payments directly from tenant bank accounts. I was more interested in the service because tenants can opt into credit bureau reporting so their on time payments helped their scores. Every tenant I've had and have now opted in. The fee is $5 a month and it can be paid by either party or split. I pay the $5. 

[TonyDown]

Today I arrived at my credit union with $25 in quarters and asked if I could make a deposit.  

The answer was no, because they are a "cashless" branch.   Cash is transacted through the ATM including a coin ATM inside the branch, below.

So this was a wake up call, a first hand example for me how the world is more and more "cashless".

 

 

 

Edited May 22 by TonyDown

[Frequentflier]

22 hours ago, TonyDown said:

Today I arrived at my credit union with $25 in quarters and asked if I could make a deposit.  

The answer was no, because they are a "cashless" branch.   Cash is transacted through the ATM including a coin ATM inside the branch, below.

So this was a wake up call, a first hand example for me how the world is more and more "cashless".

 

 

 

As I guess is one more step in that cashless direction, I read a headline today that the U.S. mint just placed its last order for pennies. Surely there are a lot of pennies out there already so it is doubtful they will disappear completely in what remains of my lifetime.

[mike carey]

1 hour ago, Frequentflier said:

As I guess is one more step in that cashless direction, I read a headline today that the U.S. mint just placed its last order for pennies. Surely there are a lot of pennies out there already so it is doubtful they will disappear completely in what remains of my lifetime.

I think that's less a harbinger of a cashless society than a recognition that having pennies makes less sense than in the past when a cent was actually worth something. It's not uncommon for low value coins to be withdrawn but for cash to remain an important payment method. Both Australia and New Zealand withdrew one and two cent coins last century, and in 2006 New Zealand issued new, smaller coins with 10 cents being the lowest value. In both countries, the low value coins were completely withdrawn from circulation, but in many settings there were still prices to the nearest cent, and exact payments were still made electronically (and by credit cards and cheques at the time). In Australia at least, the law specified how prices for non 0 and 5 cent totals had to be rounded when using cash.

[TonyDown]

Full disclosure, the coin ATM I mentioned at the credit union was out-of-order.   My bank would accept quarters if in rolls.  So I have that option or else driving to another credit union branch that confirmed their coin ATM is operational.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

3 hours ago, mike carey said:

I think that's less a harbinger of a cashless society than a recognition that having pennies makes less sense than in the past when a cent was actually worth something. It's not uncommon for low value coins to be withdrawn but for cash to remain an important payment method. Both Australia and New Zealand withdrew one and two cent coins last century, and in 2006 New Zealand issued new, smaller coins with 10 cents being the lowest value. In both countries, the low value coins were completely withdrawn from circulation, but in many settings there were still prices to the nearest cent, and exact payments were still made electronically (and by credit cards and cheques at the time). In Australia at least, the law specified how prices for non 0 and 5 cent totals had to be rounded when using cash.

In the U.S., the half-penny was removed from circulation in the 19th century for its low value and rare use, when it was worth more than today's quarter dollar.

Edited May 23 by Vegas_Millennial