It appears that I have become cashless...

This is the reason to push for plastic; fees for every debit transaction and that is how the banks make most of their money now. The customer doesn't pay the fee, or so it seems, but at the end of the day we actually do through higher cost of goods and services. Unless you receive a discount using cash the purchase cost includes the plastic fees.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

It actually leads to more waste. No retailer can operate without profit. It may appear that you are saving money, or even getting money back, but what it boils down to is a gimmick to get you to spend more. The money you think that you are getting back, is actually your money that they used all year for free.

Edit to add: The reason there are more and more banks popping up every year is the profits they rake in. They same reason drug stores are on every corner.

 

My point exaxtly as I know of no retailer that offers a cash discount. So the cost of the plastic fees is built into the prices of the merch. This is why Costco made a deal for lower transaction fees with Visa and left American Express, it saves them millions.

 

American Express has always been higher in fees than any other card carrier. They were in the game because of their benefits that the others didn't offer but you paid for those benefits. Most all fueling stations charge more for using a card over cash. Even Walmart. You can put cash on their card or pay in cash and save as much as 10 cents a gallon.

 

Its much the same with me.
I think the greater part of cash now is

In the Philippines they say, "No work, No eat"

 

I am also almost cash free.
Its just the nature of our culture.
The problem is, your life becomes utterly transparent with electric money. Everything you do, every cent you spend, is known, tracked and recorded.
Eventually, politicians will eliminate it so they can squeeze the very last nickel in taxes out of us, and control what we can and do buy.
Essentially, they think our money is their money.

 

Good point.

 

That's still uncommon in the parts of the Southeast US where I drive.

 

Do you just mean you don't have an account with a brick and mortar bank?

 

I carry Plastic here rarely cash but i am still living a "cell phone free" lifestyle no electronic leash for me

 

I'm sure/positive the money card is associated with a bank. Ever had your bank account seized by a government entity because you made a less than $100 error? And your account has waaaaaay more, did I say waaaaaaay more than $100 in it? It ain't fun and it leaves a real sour taste in your mouth. It is not the banks' fault those are the rules they have to play under. Well, there is no rule I have to have a bank account. There was a reason we left the Monarchy.

 

Not done yet, still doing both. Granted more so on the side of plastic, as it is safer, easier & better when it comes to returns, but there is just something fulfilling, if not nostalgic. It will happen soon enough but not yet.

 

You may be making sense, but I'm having trouble following it.

You say your money gets direct-deposited. Where? Direct deposit, at least the kind I'm familiar with, doesn't make greenbacks appear inside a sealed safe.

I'm guessing you're being sarcastic, but I'm not sure where. Do you really use direct deposit (electronic deposit of your wages in an account)? Or do you get paid in cash? What kind of account that isn't a bank account can receive direct deposits, and support debit cards?

 

Jeff. I think there are cards that can be loaded directly with your pay.
Not really a bank in the traditional way.

 

In the part of the country I reside we are allowed to pump our own gas. There is no minimum purchase (at this time) to use a credit card for your purchase. Since I pump my own gas I do take advantage of this opportunity to pump the absolute minimum gas I can. This is typically $.02 to $.03.

Since I pump my own gas there is zero interaction with any gas station attendant. This way I can accomplish my required five transactions monthly for a total of about $.10 to $.15. It might not put me into their customer of the month club, but I've been able to successfully do this for easily the last 10-12 years.

I actually do the same thing for a few various zero interest rate credit cards. I've purchased two brand new cars by transferring the loan balances to zero interest rate CC's that I've found with zero balance transfer fees requiring a minimum number of monthly transactions (not dollar minimums). It has become harder to find 0% interest rate and zero balance transfer fees recently, although some still exist.

 

What is really funny, at least here in parts of Europe (AT, DE, IT), is that Amex owns a loyalty program called Payback - and you can get a free American Express credit card this way. Transaction fees are "normal" (see below), and you primarily pay with your customer profile.

In the European Union, four party credit cards such as Visa and MasterCard have a fee limit: If you make a purchase, the c/c fee cannot be more than 0.3% of the amount, and 0.2% for debit cards. (Three party cards such as Amex are not affected by that law.) Also, "plastic" payments cannot be surcharged - a store etc. can either accept your card, set a payment threshold or not accept it.

Due to the 0.3% cap, the 4P credit card issuers need to make their money through annual fees, and/or by "pushing" revolving cards. Well, I rather pay my card bills 100% every month ...

Christian

 

There are still laws in the books that state if you don't have at least $5 cash on you, you can be cited with vagrancy. Now these are old laws, mostly from the depression era that just haven't been updated or amended, but still there if need be. It also didn't matter if you had a credit card on you because they couldn't back then use an app to verify you had any funds available on that card.

Just some useless info that rattles around in my head.

 

For purchases at a store, plastic works fine, but cash is still needed for person to person transactions. How would a cashless transaction work at a coin show?

 

When it comes to buying from a dealer at a coin show, there's always portable card readers such as SumUp or iZettle. They connect to the dealer's phone, and depending on the contract type, there are no monthly fees; the dealer who receives the payment is charged per transaction instead.

With "P2P" payments, there are tools such as PayPal, provided that both persons use it. Another option, at least around here (I am in the EU) is instant payments; all you need for using that "on the road" is a phone app for the bank account you have anyway. I simply transfer the money to the recipient's account the way I would usually do it, but instead of a day or two, the transfer takes five seconds or so. At this stage not every bank supports that yet. In any case, I am not saying that such payments are inherently "better" , just that viable alternatives exist even in such cases, no matter whether the receiving party is a business or not.

Christian

 

I guess this gets to the crux of the matter...cashless means no privacy, and no free lunch, with some financial entity getting their "cut" of every transaction, and tracking of every dollar that gets spent anywhere. This makes me want to stick to cash even more adamantly.