Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
You would have been stuck last week then here as the local shop to me was cash only for 2 days as their machine wasn't working. Only other option was to get a bus to town or go without.....luckily I pretty much use cash for all my day to day purchases so I was ok......other people expecting to be able to pay cashlessly were so out of luck......next time I will take a deckchair round and some beer and taunt them mercilessly
Comment from my corner shop yesterday - he lost £500 or so of sales when the card machine went down for an hour on Sunday.
His annoyance was that his wife didn't call him to ask how to fix it and just said cash only...
Sometimes though its not fixable if the issue is the network and you are reliant on others. I don't doubt the 500 lost figure in the least it will be the people like anabob that think there is no point to cash so never have any. Now that works if the issue is fixable or fairly localised. But some outages have lasted hours or in some cases days and affected millions.....now imagine you can't pay anywhere for anything for 2 days and cant get money from the atms either and you have no cash....ok the vast majority will have food in cupboards...but there will be people who can't get to work, don't have food, don't have medication because they were going to go refill the prescription etc.
Anyone that can afford to and doesn't have a cash in case of emergencies stash is a fool
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
You must know that hardly anyone used to only use cash. Most people used cheques for large payments.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
How much would that matter, though ? Presumably it would be possible to constitute a new pro-independence party. It might even do them a favour by clearing out those implicated, and distancing the new party from the mess.
The new party would lose all it's Westminster (and Scottish Parliament?) money however... Which would make funding the preparation of the next campaign a problem.
I don't think that would matter. The main pro-independence party can rely on 40-odd % of the vote before they've blinked. The trick will be to establish who is the *main* one.
Exactly there are other independence parties available now and may be even more in future. The gravy trainers are F**ked
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Many small business owners don't realise how cheap card fees have become in recent years. Was probably quoted 7% or so years ago, and hasn't kept up to date.
At least you know he's not a tax dodger if he takes bank transfers. Or at least is clever about giving the appearance he's not one.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
I get paid by cheque.
Just saying...
So you are the one who still uses them.
For a cheque to be received, somebody has to send it. So it's not *one* person, by definition.
I've had quite a lot of cheques recently, if only because for charities it's still simpler to double-authorise by signing a cheque twice than setting up payments online. But I also had one for over £50,000 from Barclays Bank.
I ahve had few and far between in last few years, last one was Hospice Lottery and I just told them to keep the money.
@DJMatthewDalton Macron has banned 32 civic groups in his six years, more than any other president in modern French history. It's a measure of how expansively he has wielded the vast powers of the French presidency. Some say it's time to rein in the office.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
You would have been stuck last week then here as the local shop to me was cash only for 2 days as their machine wasn't working. Only other option was to get a bus to town or go without.....luckily I pretty much use cash for all my day to day purchases so I was ok......other people expecting to be able to pay cashlessly were so out of luck......next time I will take a deckchair round and some beer and taunt them mercilessly
Comment from my corner shop yesterday - he lost £500 or so of sales when the card machine went down for an hour on Sunday.
His annoyance was that his wife didn't call him to ask how to fix it and just said cash only...
Where do you have to thump one of those machines to get it working?
With difficulty - what happens is the BT broadband goes down switching to the backup router - but the card machine doesn't like it so (from what I was told) you need to reboot the card reader in a particular way.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
I get paid by cheque.
Just saying...
So you are the one who still uses them.
For a cheque to be received, somebody has to send it. So it's not *one* person, by definition.
I've had quite a lot of cheques recently, if only because for charities it's still simpler to double-authorise by signing a cheque twice than setting up payments online. But I also had one for over £50,000 from Barclays Bank.
Then Barclays are hypocrites – the retail banks want cheques abolished and as I recall almost succeeded in their bid several years ago. The government backed down at the last minute if memory serves me right.
You'd be surprised how many banks insist on sending cheques by post to close accounts. Ditto shares handling companies - I forget the technical term.
Our solar panel FiT payments still come by cheque. Only four times per year and with cheque scanning in bank apps it's not a big issue. About the only cheques we receive now.
(I assume that the payer, BG, does it this way as some people fail to cash the cheques, but who knows. I've not cared enough to battle customer services to ask about electronic options)
I'm surprised. BG switched us onto payments direct to the bank account for FiT payments some time ago now.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Card transaction fees are more than direct deposit transaction fees.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would know. It mustbe tough at the bottome where you have to count every pound.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Yes, me too. It wasn't the handling money aspect. It was the reset. All my life I'd been handling money most days. Then commercial activity was shut down. Only, in practice, for a few weeks - but when it started back up, those retailers in the vanguard were urging contactless, and the contactless limit had been increased. Before that, cash was a habit. I didn't love cash, but it was perfectly adequate for my uses and didn't require glasses. Now, contactless is the default. Contactless actually causes me physical discomfort - I have to peer intently at the tiny number on the back of my debit cards to make sure I'm using the right one for the transaction (is this for me, or for us? My account or joint account?) - and with eyesight as rubbish as mine this hurts. But I still do it, because it's the habit now. I'm sure if there's some massive tech outage which temporarily means cash transactions for a few weeks I'd get back into the habit of using cash, and that would become the default again.
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
I like to have 50 quid or so in cash on me in case of emergency.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
No fees on bank transfers, but there are fees for cards?
Re cash v card, the card fees are probably less than the hassle of cash, but unless you stop taking cash completely you still have at least some of that hassle.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
6% is still 6 billion transactions a sizeable number.....23m use cash not at all or just once a month.....therefore 44m use cash more than once a month....as I said you are the minority you cash free hipster....what will happen is the same as with smart phones, cashless will increase to a certain amount and then plateau and you will never be free of cash and its something you really should be grateful for.....you don't need to use cash but if an authoritarian government that would use a fully trackable payments system if it existed gets in you will be able to drop back to cash and think "thank fuck they didn't listen to my evangelism".
Go use you devices we don't care and no thoughts of coercing you to use cash. Just keep your hands of our option to use cash if we want.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
I get paid by cheque.
Just saying...
So you are the one who still uses them.
For a cheque to be received, somebody has to send it. So it's not *one* person, by definition.
I've had quite a lot of cheques recently, if only because for charities it's still simpler to double-authorise by signing a cheque twice than setting up payments online. But I also had one for over £50,000 from Barclays Bank.
Then Barclays are hypocrites – the retail banks want cheques abolished and as I recall almost succeeded in their bid several years ago. The government backed down at the last minute if memory serves me right.
You'd be surprised how many banks insist on sending cheques by post to close accounts. Ditto shares handling companies - I forget the technical term.
Our solar panel FiT payments still come by cheque. Only four times per year and with cheque scanning in bank apps it's not a big issue. About the only cheques we receive now.
(I assume that the payer, BG, does it this way as some people fail to cash the cheques, but who knows. I've not cared enough to battle customer services to ask about electronic options)
I'm surprised. BG switched us onto payments direct to the bank account for FiT payments some time ago now.
Interesting. Maybe I should check then. Though inertia may win - finding the right person at BG versus a few seconds to scan a cheque every three months...
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
How much would that matter, though ? Presumably it would be possible to constitute a new pro-independence party. It might even do them a favour by clearing out those implicated, and distancing the new party from the mess.
Well, it would be enormously entertaining, for a start. So there's that?
Also, there would surely be a real risk of a split if they had to start a new party. It is already obvious that the Woke Nats should not be in the same party as Forbes and her supporters. A reboot would give them a chance to make the split formal
Actually, I believe that would be better for the long term prospects of indy
Is Malc watching the racing? What about Alba?
Hello OKC , I was busy at work, seemingly been a fair upsurge in ALBA members. The SNP are in deep sh*t and only the tip of the iceberg in the open so far. They have a long way to fall.
How much would that matter, though ? Presumably it would be possible to constitute a new pro-independence party. It might even do them a favour by clearing out those implicated, and distancing the new party from the mess.
The new party would lose all it's Westminster (and Scottish Parliament?) money however... Which would make funding the preparation of the next campaign a problem.
True. Short Money is a bit over a million a year for them ?
Hardly insurmountable, though.
Sell the motorhome?
In a bankruptcy that will go to the creditors, surely ?
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
You would have been stuck last week then here as the local shop to me was cash only for 2 days as their machine wasn't working. Only other option was to get a bus to town or go without.....luckily I pretty much use cash for all my day to day purchases so I was ok......other people expecting to be able to pay cashlessly were so out of luck......next time I will take a deckchair round and some beer and taunt them mercilessly
Comment from my corner shop yesterday - he lost £500 or so of sales when the card machine went down for an hour on Sunday.
His annoyance was that his wife didn't call him to ask how to fix it and just said cash only...
Where do you have to thump one of those machines to get it working?
According to the PBplumbers it needs a 5 year apprenticeship to know, and refresher training from the Terminal Thumping Safety Council every 3 years or so.
Ignorance - you have left out using an ISO standard rubber mallet. Total cowboys use their hand......
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Yes, me too. It wasn't the handling money aspect. It was the reset. All my life I'd been handling money most days. Then commercial activity was shut down. Only, in practice, for a few weeks - but when it started back up, those retailers in the vanguard were urging contactless, and the contactless limit had been increased. Before that, cash was a habit. I didn't love cash, but it was perfectly adequate for my uses and didn't require glasses. Now, contactless is the default. Contactless actually causes me physical discomfort - I have to peer intently at the tiny number on the back of my debit cards to make sure I'm using the right one for the transaction (is this for me, or for us? My account or joint account?) - and with eyesight as rubbish as mine this hurts. But I still do it, because it's the habit now. I'm sure if there's some massive tech outage which temporarily means cash transactions for a few weeks I'd get back into the habit of using cash, and that would become the default again.
I worry that if there is a massive tech outage, we wouldn't be able to access our cash, paper, coin or otherwise
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
Yes and middle of pandemic when people were barricaded in their houses as well. You could use 2021 and say vacations are going out of fashion based on that year.
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Yes, me too. It wasn't the handling money aspect. It was the reset. All my life I'd been handling money most days. Then commercial activity was shut down. Only, in practice, for a few weeks - but when it started back up, those retailers in the vanguard were urging contactless, and the contactless limit had been increased. Before that, cash was a habit. I didn't love cash, but it was perfectly adequate for my uses and didn't require glasses. Now, contactless is the default. Contactless actually causes me physical discomfort - I have to peer intently at the tiny number on the back of my debit cards to make sure I'm using the right one for the transaction (is this for me, or for us? My account or joint account?) - and with eyesight as rubbish as mine this hurts. But I still do it, because it's the habit now. I'm sure if there's some massive tech outage which temporarily means cash transactions for a few weeks I'd get back into the habit of using cash, and that would become the default again.
On cash and crooks: Washington state legalized marijauna -- but it hasn't been legalized nationally. So the local marijuana shops can't take debit and credit cards. So they have a lot of cash, as well as the marijuana.
Which has made them targets for crooks, even more than jewelers.
In a distressingly common kind of attack, the crooks steal a car, use it to smash into a shop, and then drive away with the loot (which sometimes includes an ATM machine), in another vehicle.
Ram raids are a bit 1980s, aren't they? Bollards were the usual solution.
Delivered about 500 leaflets today (weather much more conducive than yesterday, when thunder, lightning and 50 mph horizontal hail made for challenging conditions....)
Meerkat update: the only ones seen were 3 very small and frankly very poorly executed ones, sat on a branch. A branch! What did the designer think they were, blue tits?
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Yes, me too. It wasn't the handling money aspect. It was the reset. All my life I'd been handling money most days. Then commercial activity was shut down. Only, in practice, for a few weeks - but when it started back up, those retailers in the vanguard were urging contactless, and the contactless limit had been increased. Before that, cash was a habit. I didn't love cash, but it was perfectly adequate for my uses and didn't require glasses. Now, contactless is the default. Contactless actually causes me physical discomfort - I have to peer intently at the tiny number on the back of my debit cards to make sure I'm using the right one for the transaction (is this for me, or for us? My account or joint account?) - and with eyesight as rubbish as mine this hurts. But I still do it, because it's the habit now. I'm sure if there's some massive tech outage which temporarily means cash transactions for a few weeks I'd get back into the habit of using cash, and that would become the default again.
I worry that if there is a massive tech outage, we wouldn't be able to access our cash, paper, coin or otherwise
We'd rapidly have to move to ropes of seashells or the like.
Cleaners and gardeners and casual labourers still prefer cash. Mostly it is all they will take.
But I can't recall the last time a retail outlet demanded it.
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Cheltenham was interesting this year.
The bookies are cash only, but the entire rest of the course is cashless.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Card transaction fees are more than direct deposit transaction fees.
But direct deposit transaction fees alone fail to account for the total costs of dealing with cash.
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Cheltenham was interesting this year.
The bookies are cash only, but the entire rest of the course is cashless.
So you can't spend your winnings in the bar? That seems like a missed opportunity.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
What is also not being said here is that a lot of cash transactions are not actually even recorded so they are unreported making cashless seem a bigger proportion. Examples of unrecorded cash transactions and that some cashless transactions have 1 or more cash transactions behind them
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
What is also not being said here is that a lot of cash transactions are not actually even recorded so they are unreported making cashless seem a bigger proportion. Examples of unrecorded cash transactions and that some cashless transactions have 1 or more cash transactions behind them
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
I'm liking the idea of a hitman peer of the realm.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
6% is still 6 billion transactions a sizeable number.....23m use cash not at all or just once a month.....therefore 44m use cash more than once a month....as I said you are the minority you cash free hipster....what will happen is the same as with smart phones, cashless will increase to a certain amount and then plateau and you will never be free of cash and its something you really should be grateful for.....you don't need to use cash but if an authoritarian government that would use a fully trackable payments system if it existed gets in you will be able to drop back to cash and think "thank fuck they didn't listen to my evangelism".
Go use you devices we don't care and no thoughts of coercing you to use cash. Just keep your hands of our option to use cash if we want.
Your maths are off because there are several million young children who use no money at all...
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
I'm not misrepresenting. If you only use cash once a month then it's perfectly fair to describe that as "rarely".
(And why do you always sound so angry in your posts?)
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
What is also not being said here is that a lot of cash transactions are not actually even recorded so they are unreported making cashless seem a bigger proportion. Examples of unrecorded cash transactions and that some cashless transactions have 1 or more cash transactions behind them
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
I'm liking the idea of a hitman peer of the realm.
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
TV licence at the PO. Mortgage? - you're having a laugh. Rent - at the council office, or directly to the landlord, or paid by housing benefit.
If you're very short, and juggling where to minimise debt, then cards/phones can be dangerous - it's really easier, at least for many elderly people, to keep track with cash of what they can actually afford.
Anyway - for most private services I wouldn't make cash a compulsory option - if a company wants to exclude some of its customers, that's up to them. But public services need to be available to everyone.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
Switch to Revolut or Monzo. They're pretty good about not charging for foreign currency transactions.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
Should I buy my replacement irony meter with cash, or find a place that takes card?
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
What is also not being said here is that a lot of cash transactions are not actually even recorded so they are unreported making cashless seem a bigger proportion. Examples of unrecorded cash transactions and that some cashless transactions have 1 or more cash transactions behind them
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
I'm liking the idea of a hitman peer of the realm.
Only paid in cash.
Guineas.
Surely a gentleman would only take payment in land?
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
What is also not being said here is that a lot of cash transactions are not actually even recorded so they are unreported making cashless seem a bigger proportion. Examples of unrecorded cash transactions and that some cashless transactions have 1 or more cash transactions behind them
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
I'm liking the idea of a hitman peer of the realm.
Only paid in cash.
Guineas.
Surely a gentleman would only take payment in land?
Delivered about 500 leaflets today (weather much more conducive than yesterday, when thunder, lightning and 50 mph horizontal hail made for challenging conditions....)
Meerkat update: the only ones seen were 3 very small and frankly very poorly executed ones, sat on a branch. A branch! What did the designer think they were, blue tits?
Very useful vantage point if no convenient termite hill. And not very many termites in Devon (though IIRC there are some, adding to the terrors of house-buying).
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
Switch to Revolut or Monzo. They're pretty good about not charging for foreign currency transactions.
Yes - I've travelled around a couple of Scandinavian countries and never used cash.
The rates that Revolut use are extremely good - their profit comes from a tiny spread.
Delivered about 500 leaflets today (weather much more conducive than yesterday, when thunder, lightning and 50 mph horizontal hail made for challenging conditions....)
Meerkat update: the only ones seen were 3 very small and frankly very poorly executed ones, sat on a branch. A branch! What did the designer think they were, blue tits?
Full-scale row on local Facebook page between Greens ….. main opposition…..and the Tories over alleged lies in a leaflet. Could get nasty!
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
I'm not misrepresenting. If you only use cash once a month then it's perfectly fair to describe that as "rarely".
(And why do you always sound so angry in your posts?)
I sound angry because there are fuckwits like you always on every subject going yes I don't need that and all those poor people they don't need it either they can learn to cope. Sometimes from the left sometimes from the right. I particularly loved the way you batted aside the reference to those that have dyscalculia....presumably not so right on as dyslexia where you would be shrieking like a banshee if someone tried to hold them to account for their spelling and saying they they should just use a spellchecker and learn to cope
Rather different from the last polling which PBRoyalists got so excited about. Will/might watch: probably not/definitely not is the now traditional 48:52.
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
Switch to Revolut or Monzo. They're pretty good about not charging for foreign currency transactions.
I have a a Starling account for that purpose. Also get notifications with each one so you see your exchange rate in real time and know when your card is nicked or scammed, provided your phone isn't also nicked!
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
In each case he gets 100pc. Cards means banks take a bite
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
Switch to Revolut or Monzo. They're pretty good about not charging for foreign currency transactions.
Yes - I've travelled around a couple of Scandinavian countries and never used cash.
The rates that Revolut use are extremely good - their profit comes from a tiny spread.
They later appeared in a Discord server frequented by fans of the Minecraft computer game. One user posted the documents during an argument with another member about the war in Ukraine stating: "Here, have some leaked documents"
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
If you were living in poverty and had a very limited budget you would
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
Well he would have to pay for card machine , line rental , etc. Bank transfer is free.
What is also not being said here is that a lot of cash transactions are not actually even recorded so they are unreported making cashless seem a bigger proportion. Examples of unrecorded cash transactions and that some cashless transactions have 1 or more cash transactions behind them
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
I'm liking the idea of a hitman peer of the realm.
Only paid in cash.
Guineas.
Surely a gentleman would only take payment in land?
My father charged guineas for private consultant work.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
I have had a week off and not used cash down on the IOW, and haven't used in at least a month in Leicester either. Not even for bus fare.
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
Switch to Revolut or Monzo. They're pretty good about not charging for foreign currency transactions.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
At least then there's no danger of you two ever meeting over dinner.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
In each case he gets 100pc. Cards means banks take a bite
Business bank accounts tend to charge for bank transfers received above a certain limit, AFAIK?
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Sympathies, Kurt, that sounds very rough for her (and probably for you too).
This is one of those areas where people in one cultural framework imagine that everyone else is. I know people like Anabob who use phones for everything, and people who use cash for everything. Most of my circle use contactless cards most of the time, and cash now and then. But in terms of avoiding social exclusion, it's important to maintain means of dealing with the world which are not found difficult by a large group of society, and elderly folk who can't handle smart watches (or even laptops) are still very common. When the number diminishes below 1%, it'll be reasonable to phase out cash, but for now it still makes sense to make it a requirement for any public service.
Presumably the trend to electronic transactions has reduced certain types of crime, or at least made them harder - tradesmen wanting to be paid in cash now look fishy rather than normal, though I suspect it's still quite common.
Agreed – and I'm not calling for an immediate ban. Simply that, as you say, it's going to dwindle so low that we'll have to make a realistic decision at some point fairly soon about phasing it out.
I'd been keen to know what proportion of the population only use cash... I suspect it's very low indeed currently – albeit not as low as 1%.
It's around 18-21% only use cash (the figures cannot be exact for obvious reasons). But 83% still use it as a regular part of their lives.
It was suggested above that notes will go last. I would expect coins to survive them actually for the simple reason they are more useful in the smaller transactions that will stubbornly cling on.
I did a "click'n'collect" order a while back and when I went in to pick up my stuff they'd had to substitute something and owed me two quid. So they gave me two shiny pound coins. I honestly stood for a second or two staring at them in wonder - items from the before times.
They're still sat on the hall sideboard months later.
Good news for Tories/Lib Dems if they can associate the SNP with letting the Highlands/islands down. But I still think it will only have a marginal impact on overall results - it's all about the central belt.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
I've gone months in London without using cash. I always do have some, but it can stay unspent in my pocket for entire seasons
It just seems mad to believe that in twenty years we will still be reaching in purses and counting out bits of paper and circles of metal. I do sympathise with sad stories like that of @ManchesterKurt below - that's awful - but I don't see that stopping inevitable progress
Agree entirely. In fact @ManchesterKurt has given an excellent if saddening counterexample – others just seem to be based on: "I like cash, dunno why".
I use cash, because as has been patiently explained to you before, outside Extortion City there are still lots of places that don't take cards because it's much more expensive particularly for small transactions. I know that a study put forward by the main card clearing house said otherwise but it was patently not telling the truth (as in, had forged its figures).
What might kill cash off eventually is the number of bank branches that are being closed, which will make it much more difficult to obtain and secure it. That's what's happening in say, North Wales. And that is not because of the merits or demerits of physical cash but because (1) branches being shut down, however well-used, reduces overheads dramatically and (b) banks can charge more in card transaction fees than in cash deposit fees.
London is not a typical example and should also never be used as such. It's much more crowded, much more expensive and much younger than the average town in the UK, including for things like food and transport (coins are still needed for many bus journeys round here). It's therefore less practical to use cash and the population tends to be more addicted to their phones in any case. That doesn't mean just because London is moving towards cashlessness everywhere else will as well.
Everywhere is MOVING TOWARDS cashlessness and to claim otherwise is to deny the clear evidence in front of you. As much as it might not appeal to your prejudices, I leave London regularly – particularly for hiking and biking tours in high-country remote places.
I haven't used cash for anything, anywhere in the UK, and haven't needed to. The idea that rural areas are still cash-only holdouts is an utter fantasy.
I've just spent about two weeks going around Cornwall - from little villages to bigger towns. I needed cash just once - in a cafe in a remote cove - but that was only because their wifi was down so the machine would not work
It was noticeable and I remember it precisely because it seemed so odd - to everyone. Actual Cash!
In the last few years I have only used cash for a haircut (yep I don't know why they only take cash). I did a holiday in Iceland a few years ago and never used cash once; I didn't have any. Adnams will not take cash in their pubs.
This is going to be a problem going forward for the very few who have no alternative to cash.
Surprising how things have changed in a decade. I was in Stockholm for work in 2010, arrived on delayed flight (snow at UK airport) very late and grabbed a cab from the centre to where I was staying with colleague - original plan was colleague to pick me up, but it was late, his wife was out on shift and young children so he culdn't leave as he would have done earlier. Asked for them to stop at a cash machine on the way so I could pay, only to find they had a card machine on-board. Seemed futuristic at the time; I'd never encountered that in UK.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
My barber doesn't take cards but does take bank transfers, which I've never quite got my head around.
In each case he gets 100pc. Cards means banks take a bite
Business bank accounts tend to charge for bank transfers received above a certain limit, AFAIK?
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
At least then there's no danger of you two ever meeting over dinner.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
At least then there's no danger of you two ever meeting over dinner.
Or they blag a free dinner off the Guardian? No need to worry about how, never mind by whom, the bill is paid.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
See few card only shops here but then I am not a hipster londonite that doesn't give a shit about people that can't do non cash payments.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
Cards in Scandinavian taxis, before the global era of Uber, were indeed a joy of business travel particularly as Kronor cash wasn’t any use elsewhere and tended to end up sitting around in drawers at home.
I used Kroner throughout my stay earlier this year - don't trust my bank not to charge exorbitant conversion fees. Didn't have any problem - you've found places refusing cash there?
Switch to Revolut or Monzo. They're pretty good about not charging for foreign currency transactions.
Yes - I've travelled around a couple of Scandinavian countries and never used cash.
The rates that Revolut use are extremely good - their profit comes from a tiny spread.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
I have had a week off and not used cash down on the IOW, and haven't used in at least a month in Leicester either. Not even for bus fare.
I just find the anti-cash brigade very intolerant and impatient. I don't know why they have to adopt such an attitude.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
See few card only shops here but then I am not a hipster londonite that doesn't give a shit about people that can't do non cash payments.
And if your bank suddenly decides it doesn't like you ...
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply
...struggling with my veracity?
I struggle with the veracity of the anecdote – they tell you they can't budget without cash. I say most of them probably could.
Great that you can decide that without knowing them.
As for me, I rarely use cash myself - but I always carry £20-£30 just in case. I don't like "cash only" or "card only" businesses - let people choose.
You can choose by choosing to take your custom elsewhere.
The pandemic killed my cash habit. I used to use it a lot, far more than most, just liked doing it, nice crisp notes, nice shiny coins, but come Covid and the consequent urge to not touch things others had touched I went card only, and now the thought of carrying cash around seems weird. I took £20 out of a machine in Feb 2020 and I still have it sitting there in a drawer. I think I do anyway ... let me just go and check ... yep it's still there. £20.
Of course it turns out that things like coins and banknotes weren't an important factor in transmitting Covid 19.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
See few card only shops here but then I am not a hipster londonite that doesn't give a shit about people that can't do non cash payments.
Even in the desolate North we are becoming a cashless society.
Only occasions I use cash these days is in black cabs (99% take cards) but I’m more of an Uber Exec/Lux man these days.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
I know Wetherspoons in London still take cash.
Even when I lived in the south east last year in slough there was more shops cash only than card only in fact I am trying to think of a card only place in slough before I left in september. Its a purely london phenomenon. The pubs I goto sundays take both happily, so do the buses taxis, takeaways, supermarkets and restaurants and you see plenty using cash
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
I have produced the evidence – that 23 million people use it rarely or never.
Fewer than one cash transaction a month for around half of all adults. Twelve – 12! – cash transactions A YEAR!
I haven't used cash for any transaction for as long as I remember and even when I have it's been very grudgingly to tradesmen who demand it –– I wonder why? This is not just in London but, as I have already said, in many remote areas where I holiday. Others have said similarly.
I think persisting with it is ridiculous for most people and businesses. I wouldn't ban it yet, but if it ends up constituting fewer than 5% of all transactions – which is likely, quite soon – we will need to have a national policy debate about its abolition.
These are rational points.
Much of the pro-cash stuff on here is emotional guff.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Sounds like you haven't use banknotes for so long you haven't noticed they're now mostly waterproof.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
I have produced the evidence – that 23 million people use it rarely or never.
Fewer than one cash transaction a month for around half of all adults. Twelve – 12! – cash transactions A YEAR!
I haven't used cash for any transaction for as long as I remember and even when I have it's been very grudgingly to tradesmen who demand it –– I wonder why? This is not just in London but, as I have already said, in many remote areas where I holiday. Others have said similarly.
I think persisting with it is ridiculous for most people and businesses. I wouldn't ban it yet, but if it ends up constituting fewer than 5% of all transactions – which is likely, quite soon – we will need to have a national policy debate about its abolition.
These are rational points.
Much of the pro-cash stuff on here is emotional guff.
Shrugs who cares what you think to be honest, cashless only are a minority and there will never be enough of you to get rid of cash.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
I'm not misrepresenting. If you only use cash once a month then it's perfectly fair to describe that as "rarely".
(And why do you always sound so angry in your posts?)
I sound angry because there are fuckwits like you always on every subject going yes I don't need that and all those poor people they don't need it either they can learn to cope. Sometimes from the left sometimes from the right. I particularly loved the way you batted aside the reference to those that have dyscalculia....presumably not so right on as dyslexia where you would be shrieking like a banshee if someone tried to hold them to account for their spelling and saying they they should just use a spellchecker and learn to cope
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism? I have said that I don't advocate banning it, simply that it is largely pointless, and actively counterproductive in many cases (see @Leon's points above). You insist on cash if you wish, but you'd struggle around here where many businesses are cashless, and it is rational for them to be so.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
I doubt I would find anywhere I would want to give my custom too that was cashless in any case. They seem to be the sort of place that needs to get over themselves.
A daft response. Most have given up cash because few if any of their customers ever pay with it, so there is no point retaining it.
See few card only shops here but then I am not a hipster londonite that doesn't give a shit about people that can't do non cash payments.
And if your bank suddenly decides it doesn't like you ...
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
I have produced the evidence – that 23 million people use it rarely or never.
Fewer than one cash transaction a month for around half of all adults. Twelve – 12! – cash transactions A YEAR!
I haven't used cash for any transaction for as long as I remember and even when I have it's been very grudgingly to tradesmen who demand it –– I wonder why? This is not just in London but, as I have already said, in many remote areas where I holiday. Others have said similarly.
I think persisting with it is ridiculous for most people and businesses. I wouldn't ban it yet, but if it ends up constituting fewer than 5% of all transactions – which is likely, quite soon – we will need to have a national policy debate about its abolition.
These are rational points.
Much of the pro-cash stuff on here is emotional guff.
Is\n't that word 'transaction' remarkably loaded? As another of us has pointed out, lots of cash exchange takes place whichn the banks don't count.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Sympathies, Kurt, that sounds very rough for her (and probably for you too).
This is one of those areas where people in one cultural framework imagine that everyone else is. I know people like Anabob who use phones for everything, and people who use cash for everything. Most of my circle use contactless cards most of the time, and cash now and then. But in terms of avoiding social exclusion, it's important to maintain means of dealing with the world which are not found difficult by a large group of society, and elderly folk who can't handle smart watches (or even laptops) are still very common. When the number diminishes below 1%, it'll be reasonable to phase out cash, but for now it still makes sense to make it a requirement for any public service.
Presumably the trend to electronic transactions has reduced certain types of crime, or at least made them harder - tradesmen wanting to be paid in cash now look fishy rather than normal, though I suspect it's still quite common.
Agreed – and I'm not calling for an immediate ban. Simply that, as you say, it's going to dwindle so low that we'll have to make a realistic decision at some point fairly soon about phasing it out.
I'd been keen to know what proportion of the population only use cash... I suspect it's very low indeed currently – albeit not as low as 1%.
It's around 18-21% only use cash (the figures cannot be exact for obvious reasons). But 83% still use it as a regular part of their lives.
It was suggested above that notes will go last. I would expect coins to survive them actually for the simple reason they are more useful in the smaller transactions that will stubbornly cling on.
I did a "click'n'collect" order a while back and when I went in to pick up my stuff they'd had to substitute something and owed me two quid. So they gave me two shiny pound coins. I honestly stood for a second or two staring at them in wonder - items from the before times.
They're still sat on the hall sideboard months later.
Yes, or lost down the back of the sofa in many similar cases.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
I'm not misrepresenting. If you only use cash once a month then it's perfectly fair to describe that as "rarely".
(And why do you always sound so angry in your posts?)
I sound angry because there are fuckwits like you always on every subject going yes I don't need that and all those poor people they don't need it either they can learn to cope. Sometimes from the left sometimes from the right. I particularly loved the way you batted aside the reference to those that have dyscalculia....presumably not so right on as dyslexia where you would be shrieking like a banshee if someone tried to hold them to account for their spelling and saying they they should just use a spellchecker and learn to cope
So now you resort to personal insults.
A classic sign that you have lost the argument.
Because when its pointed out to you a leftie who is meant to care about the poor and disadvantaged and disabled your cashless utopia will cause them issues your response is....they will have to learn to deal....wow just wow. I as a fairly hard right person have more compassion for them than you so yes you are a fuckwit. You are virtue signalling idiot who cares more about seeming like they are hip and the future than the effect on the people you claim to care for, you remember them the down trodden, the dispossessed, the disabled, the poor, the neurodivergent.....your opinion is fuck them they will learn to deal. I can't lose an argument with you because you have no valid point to even argue about you are just a "Aren't I cool I embraced the future" idiot.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply
...struggling with my veracity?
I struggle with the veracity of the anecdote – they tell you they can't budget without cash. I say most of them probably could.
Great that you can decide that without knowing them.
As for me, I rarely use cash myself - but I always carry £20-£30 just in case. I don't like "cash only" or "card only" businesses - let people choose.
You can choose by choosing to take your custom elsewhere.
Not if you want to buy something that only one place sells and that place excludes you.
Re: cash, someone said to me the other day, have you seen the 'new' 50pm coin?
I replied that I hadn't seen it, nor a 50p coin of any kind, old, middle-aged or new, for about a decade.
Really?
Up until 2020, I had a coin jar, which accumulated change through the year and was periodically taken to the bank - it used to get about £400 a year in change. Since the pandemic, it no longer builds up ,and I have to go out of my way from time to time to get change to keep it stocked. But I do still need coins, for reasons including, er: - transactions with children (the tooth fairy doesn't bring plastic) - tips in restaurants (I want my money to go to the specific waiter/waitress who provided the service) - buskers - parking (most car parks accept payment by app but that is a massive pain in the arse, particularly if I don't have my glasses with me) - filling a pint glass with, then pissing in it and throwing it from on high at 15 year old girls who have a different favourite football team to me (joking - I'm not a Liverpool fan).
It's not a massive list. But cash isn't dead yet.
EDIT: All that said, upon meeting a colleague for the first time in 2 years recently, I was shocked to find he no longer even carries a wallet - just does everything on his phone. Does he not worry about running out of battery? Does he not worry about losing his phone? Does he not worry about having his phone but not his glasses? Apparently not. Not for me, Clive.
I haven't carried a wallet for nearly two years. Both my watch and phone make payments so what exactly is the point of carting around a load of pointless plastic and paper?
In Thailand it is still 80% cash at least. It is really quite annoying have to go back to paper wads (let alone meaningless coins). It made me realise that cash is definitely doomed. Cash is a total pain
It really is. A total timer waster –– "oh I have to go to the bank machine, where is the bank machine? Dunno, oh it's x miles away"
Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays.
Plus you can lose cash, it's a hassle to change it, you put it in the washing machine by mistake, and so on and so forth
Cash is doomed, the same way real gold and silver coins were doomed back in the day, and the value of notes and coins became notional
Indeed. And it's risky, carrying it around. I imagine 'petty' robberies (in the absence of a more appropriate term) are much more prevalent in those countries where cash is the norm.
It's rare among my friends that anyone carries cash – as it's pointless in London.
That's simply not true: the homeless need cash to buy their Tennant's lager.
I don't get his loony evangelism approach.....no one is telling him he has to use cash ever if he doesn't want to. Why does it bother him so much that some of us are going cashless....nah pass on that thanks for the offer
What loony evangelism?
"Absolutely ridiculous persisting with it nowadays"?
He's actually very reasonable on most subjects. But he gets very agitated about cash for some reason. A burning and irrational hatred of it extrapolated from its lower than average use in London to the rest of the country by using forged surveys and waving away all actual evidence that contradicts his views.
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
I have produced the evidence – that 23 million people use it rarely or never.
Fewer than one cash transaction a month for around half of all adults. Twelve – 12! – cash transactions A YEAR!
I haven't used cash for any transaction for as long as I remember and even when I have it's been very grudgingly to tradesmen who demand it –– I wonder why? This is not just in London but, as I have already said, in many remote areas where I holiday. Others have said similarly.
I think persisting with it is ridiculous for most people and businesses. I wouldn't ban it yet, but if it ends up constituting fewer than 5% of all transactions – which is likely, quite soon – we will need to have a national policy debate about its abolition.
These are rational points.
Much of the pro-cash stuff on here is emotional guff.
You wouldn't ban it yet, but you might ban it in the future perhaps.
Council round here has moved to phone apps entirely for parking, even though they had machines available which could take contactless payments. Bonkers.
Contactless is great. Phone apps for carparking just shouldn't be allowed. For one thing your debit card won't go out of battery for that 1% of time your phone is out of juice and you can't phone tap the contactless.
If there's contactless (hell, even chip and pin) then I'm not too bothered about what else is available. Cash for those who prefer/need that should also be provided, I think.
The frustrating thing is that any halfway decent parking app standard would be more convenient for most. Car reg(s) stored in app. Location services pinpoint the car park (or some NFC thing to swipe at worst). Choose your time and go, automatic payment. Extendable without returning to the car park. No queues. Many benefits. The current shit-show is not necessary.
Why? Would you allow people to pay in postal orders or cheques or similarly obsolete payments?
Because there will always be a proportion of the population that require cash as they are unable to deal with more modern ways of budgeting.
My wife had a very severe stroke 5 years ago and has left her with tremendous mental issues, she cannot understand the difference between up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards. She cannot unlock doors, she cannot leave the house alone.
But she does have a level of financial independence as each month we take some money out of her bank and over the month she manages her spend as she can touch, feel and see her money.
My wife could not deal with a card (if nothing else her eye sight is so poor she cannot see the numbers on the keypads), take away cash and you take away about the only thing in her life that she has any level of independence over.
My wife may be a very extreme case, but there are probably far more people at that end of the spectrum than you would imagine.
Absolutely - I know a few people who like to use cash for budgeting because paying by card doesn't feel like spending money.
Obviously, people who don't need to worry about having month left at the end of the money can merrily tap away.
I struggle with the veracity of such anecdotes. Do they pay their monthly bills by cash, at a post office? Their TV licence? Their mortgage? Their rent? How many people as a proportion of the UK population operate only in cash – and how exactly do they string a life together?
Bills go out the day after payday, then they withdraw whatever's left in cash and budget accordingly.
You can call me a liar if you want.
I'm not calling you a liar, simply challenging the idea that they wouldn't learn to budget were cash unavailable. People adapt. Seatbelt paradox.
I am curious why you are strident on this issue, most of those saying they should be able to continue to pay cash aren't telling you that you must use cash. They are just saying they want to retain the right to use cash instead of card/phone whatever.
So if no one is saying you have to be made to use cash...why are you so fervent on stopping those that want the option to continue having the option to use cash?
It's going to become a big policy question, probably fairly soon. Cash is dying. A large and growing proportion of the population never or rarely use it. It's like analogue telly – getting the holdouts to switch to digital was vexatious for a while, but it happened. Retaining cash when a tiny proportion of the population use it will be akin to retaining analogue telly.
The number who never use cash isn't even 50% of people. The cashless are still the minority cash users are not a tiny proportion.
The "never or rarely" number was 23 million people last year, with only 15% of all transactions in cash. That's expected to fall to 6% by 2032. At what stage do we have a national debate about abolishing it?
I would be "rarely". That doesn't mean I think abolishing cash is acceptable.
It wasnt rarely that is Anabob misrepresenting "During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
I'm not misrepresenting. If you only use cash once a month then it's perfectly fair to describe that as "rarely".
(And why do you always sound so angry in your posts?)
I sound angry because there are fuckwits like you always on every subject going yes I don't need that and all those poor people they don't need it either they can learn to cope. Sometimes from the left sometimes from the right. I particularly loved the way you batted aside the reference to those that have dyscalculia....presumably not so right on as dyslexia where you would be shrieking like a banshee if someone tried to hold them to account for their spelling and saying they they should just use a spellchecker and learn to cope
So now you resort to personal insults.
A classic sign that you have lost the argument.
Because when its pointed out to you a leftie who is meant to care about the poor and disadvantaged and disabled your cashless utopia will cause them issues your response is....they will have to learn to deal....wow just wow. I as a fairly hard right person have more compassion for them than you so yes you are a fuckwit. You are virtue signalling idiot who cares more about seeming like they are hip and the future than the effect on the people you claim to care for, you remember them the down trodden, the dispossessed, the disabled, the poor, the neurodivergent.....your opinion is fuck them they will learn to deal. I can't lose an argument with you because you have no valid point to even argue about you are just a "Aren't I cool I embraced the future" idiot.
I'm struggling to believe you wrote that, and that @Andy_JS 'liked' it.
What vitriolic nonsense.
Again, I haven't said that we should ban cash, simply that if it gets to a position where very few transactions are made in cash we will have to have a national policy debate about it.
That is the reality.
In 20 years, do you still expect people to be counting out cash and coins at Tescos? Rich, or poor? If so, how prevalent do you think that behaviour is likely to be?
Comments
Anyone that can afford to and doesn't have a cash in case of emergencies stash is a fool
Lots of things used to happen a long time ago.
Now it's a shock to be asked for cash in most places. Haircuts are also the one place I usually need cash - are they all dodging tax?
At least you know he's not a tax dodger if he takes bank transfers. Or at least is clever about giving the appearance he's not one.
There is an interesting graphic from the poll relating to the different segments of our society.
@DJMatthewDalton
Macron has banned 32 civic groups in his six years, more than any other president in modern French history. It's a measure of how expansively he has wielded the vast powers of the French presidency. Some say it's time to rein in the office.
https://twitter.com/DJMatthewDalton/status/1646438517281640450
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/aug/18/uk-cashless-society-a-step-closer-as-more-than-23m-people-abandon-coins
It wasn't the handling money aspect. It was the reset. All my life I'd been handling money most days. Then commercial activity was shut down. Only, in practice, for a few weeks - but when it started back up, those retailers in the vanguard were urging contactless, and the contactless limit had been increased. Before that, cash was a habit. I didn't love cash, but it was perfectly adequate for my uses and didn't require glasses. Now, contactless is the default.
Contactless actually causes me physical discomfort - I have to peer intently at the tiny number on the back of my debit cards to make sure I'm using the right one for the transaction (is this for me, or for us? My account or joint account?) - and with eyesight as rubbish as mine this hurts. But I still do it, because it's the habit now.
I'm sure if there's some massive tech outage which temporarily means cash transactions for a few weeks I'd get back into the habit of using cash, and that would become the default again.
Re cash v card, the card fees are probably less than the hassle of cash, but unless you stop taking cash completely you still have at least some of that hassle.
Go use you devices we don't care and no thoughts of coercing you to use cash. Just keep your hands of our option to use cash if we want.
"During 2021 there were 23.1 million consumers who used cash only once a month or not at all" is the quote... once or not at all. Rarely is not once
I am not yet convinced they will even be the largest party.
Meerkat update: the only ones seen were 3 very small and frankly very poorly executed ones, sat on a branch. A branch! What did the designer think they were, blue tits?
Cleaners and gardeners and casual labourers still prefer cash. Mostly it is all they will take.
But I can't recall the last time a retail outlet demanded it.
The bookies are cash only, but the entire rest of the course is cashless.
Lending a friend a tenner.
Clubbing together to pay for a meal 5 people pay 20quid cash the 6th puts the meal on his card for 80 quid (often used by our games night crew when we have a get together and order chinese, shows as 1 card transaction but is actually 1 card and 5 cash)
Buying something out of the classified ads, a car, a sofa
Buying illicit services such as drugs, prostitution, hitmen, peers of the realm etc
Paying cash in hand, for example if I got my lawn cut and chucked the guy a tenner cash
Cash only businesses that aren't paying tax
Giving cash to a charity via donation box
Giving cash to a beggar or busker
Giving a tip in cash to a waiter
Yes I suspect there are a lot of cash transactions missing from the data
Only paid in cash.
Guineas.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1646510460936790022?t=vdQgep81IUwVvmN9GVsYAg&s=19
(And why do you always sound so angry in your posts?)
Never used Uber either. Different worlds!
If you're very short, and juggling where to minimise debt, then cards/phones can be dangerous - it's really easier, at least for many elderly people, to keep track with cash of what they can actually afford.
Anyway - for most private services I wouldn't make cash a compulsory option - if a company wants to exclude some of its customers, that's up to them. But public services need to be available to everyone.
Perhaps is is you who is the loony evangelist – for cash. Have you ever considered that?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rexness/4390984783
https://focusedcollection.com/172749182/stock-photo-meerkat-sitting-branch-kgalagadi-transfrontier.html
Edit: Correction: Devonian termites ex-termitinated.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/21/a-world-first-devon-calls-victory-in-27-year-war-on-termites
The rates that Revolut use are extremely good - their profit comes from a tiny spread.
I hope! Fun watching!
On that basis England'd still be a republic!
https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1646546839045394434?s=20
Seems a weird thing to get so worked up about, but there we are, everyone's different. After all, Vetinari got worked up about mime artists and there are even those who don't understand the full horror of pineapple pizzas.
They are the SNP of challenger banks.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/revolut-auditor-flags-concerns-about-576-mln-revenues-long-delayed-accounts-2023-03-01/
!!!
They're still sat on the hall sideboard months later.
Good news for Tories/Lib Dems if they can associate the SNP with letting the Highlands/islands down. But I still think it will only have a marginal impact on overall results - it's all about the central belt.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cannibal-Cookbook-Human-recipes-around/dp/B08SGR2W6M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=XJG31I1NMHG8&keywords=cannibal+cookbook&qid=1681360254&sprefix=cannibal+cook,aps,83&sr=8-1
Starling seem OK but you can't rant at someone on the phone very easily.
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/why-banks-are-freezing-accounts-and-what-to-do-if-it-happens-to-you-aPXrh7F1YCx1
Only occasions I use cash these days is in black cabs (99% take cards) but I’m more of an Uber Exec/Lux man these days.
Fewer than one cash transaction a month for around half of all adults. Twelve – 12! – cash transactions A YEAR!
I haven't used cash for any transaction for as long as I remember and even when I have it's been very grudgingly to tradesmen who demand it –– I wonder why? This is not just in London but, as I have already said, in many remote areas where I holiday. Others have said similarly.
I think persisting with it is ridiculous for most people and businesses. I wouldn't ban it yet, but if it ends up constituting fewer than 5% of all transactions – which is likely, quite soon – we will need to have a national policy debate about its abolition.
These are rational points.
Much of the pro-cash stuff on here is emotional guff.
this is quite the word salad from Tim Scott on a national abortion ban
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1646530524960239616
A classic sign that you have lost the argument.
But the likes of Monzo etc don’t care.
Or not paid at all, as not worth it.
An economic nonsense.
What vitriolic nonsense.
Again, I haven't said that we should ban cash, simply that if it gets to a position where very few transactions are made in cash we will have to have a national policy debate about it.
That is the reality.
In 20 years, do you still expect people to be counting out cash and coins at Tescos? Rich, or poor? If so, how prevalent do you think that behaviour is likely to be?