It appears that I have become cashless...

It's sad, but over the past 2 - 3 years I think I have had physical cash in my wallet maybe 3 - 4 times. Each time I only had less than $100 and I spent it quickly. I never carry coins any more. I never use bills so I never have change. I can't remember the last time I had to use physical money. The restaurants I eat in take plastic. The vending machines I use take plastic. Parking meters take plastic. I can pay library fines with plastic. Online purchases of course all use intangible money. I now get impatient when someone in front of me has to count change because it holds up the line. I went to a retro arcade and the video games didn't take coins, you had to purchase a swipe card to play them. And you paid for the swipe card with plastic. The little quarter slots were on the games, but they were non-functional. It didn't really feel too retro in the end. I honestly no longer use cash at all. I didn't plan this. It just happened.

Does anyone else see their lives becoming cashless?

 

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Nope.

By the way, I've been held up in line by plenty of plastic users.

 

Pretty much cashless here. rarely have cash on me, will have a $20 every couple months when its time for a haircut, but that's about it. It has seemed strange to me from the point of view of a collector not to be using cash and coin all that often, but from a practical view cashless is just easier for the way I spend money.

 

just the opposite, i always carry cash and always break a dollar. never spend pocket change so i have a handful to search thru at the end of the day. an i hate it when i'm in line behind some...person who cant figure out why they're plastic card is not working or they get they're passcode wrong all for a pack of cigs, like dude! give the guy a ten, take your change an get out so i can get on with my life, geeeze i wish i could like just smack these people in the back of the head....

 

Do you remember when the "Express Line" in the grocery store use to require "Cash Only"?

Chris

 

I agree that the society is slowly becoming cashless, and will soon become "cardless" as well (ApplePay or similar). However, there are still many occasions where cash is needed. Like traveling overseas, I would prefer paying cash than plastics when I'm buying souvenirs or sandwiches. A number of smaller-sized restaurants over here still say "cash only"... Just met one last week, lucky I brought some cash. I think they want to save the 3% card charges, plus some tax purposes.

 

I could easily go all plastic, but I make a point of carrying and using some cash just for the principle of it.

 

Me2

 

I am cashless. I only carry cash on me so I can go to banks to ask for coins (ones i don't have accounts with).
The percentage back is very valuable to me. There is no percent back for using cash, unfortunately .

 

ha! There are times when the CC machines communications aren't working and Self-Serve or cashier lines have signs up "cash only here" still at Walmart, meijer and Target around here.

At the place I buy lunch it's faster paying cash then credit. I guess the CC machines are just a tad slower than quickly paying cash. But I always pay with a $20 to $10 though as I'm after the change so I don't have to count out change to pay.

I use all the change, the $1 immediately go in a cash box. At the end of the week the $5s and $10 follow them. When i get 100 One's they get converted to $50s or $20 and roll up to my Cash Reserves box. Which I use to pay cash for contractors that do a lot of manual labor - last year had a lot of brick work done.

I get some pretty hefty discounts paying cash for stuff and it's all built up from change. Better than the 2% cash back my one CC gets for anything, which I use for non-cash stuff.

 

I use cash whenever I can, but indeed most of my spending on a % basis is with plastic.

I'd bet spending in the US is >95% cashless today.

 

I always carry some cash, usually less than a hundred bucks. But I generally pay with cash for small purchases, tips, etc. Not 100% sure what my logic is, I just like it that way.

 

I always carry a few hundred dollars in my wallet. You never know when a sweet deal something might arise and you can always haggle with cash on the spot. Now that doesn't mean I am constantly spending hundreds of dollars in cash; it just means I always have it for the unforeseeable. Almost all day to day purchases go on the credit card because, you know, cash back

 

I saw a guy swipe a credit card on his phone last year, then I knew cash was dead.

 

Like the clown trying to pay for a bottle of Gatorade with what had to be 20 credit cards that were all rejected.

 

Absolutely not. As careful as I am with my cards, I have had my card hacked three times in two years. I will be a cash guy as long as I am able.

 

Ironically, just saw on TV how supposedly many wedding ppl are asking for Cash instead of gift registering.
Guess cash still has a following. lol

Electronic payments are ever so handy I do admit. But just having "cash in hand" has it's certain feeling. Of course for those that search/collect "change" using electronic payment doesn't help.

 

Much of my income is in cash and I get some nice discounts by paying for goods and services in cash. Many of the folks I deal with don't have a way to take plastic. I will never be cashless.

 

All of the varied responses to "going cashless" or not have been very interesting. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue that this change is necessarily either good or bad, just that it's something that seems to be happening to more and more people around me. The experience also probably depends on whether one lives in an urban or a rural environment and one's region of the country, etc. I live in a decent sized and highly wired city so that definitely shapes my experience.

For me, the largest difference between, say, twenty years ago and now is that twenty years ago I had to have cash. I needed it. I couldn't get by without it. I used to make at least weekly trips to ATMs and I always had some amount of cash in my wallet and usually some coins jingling in my pockets. When my on hand cash supply began to deplete I would start to worry and rush to another ATM to refill.

Now I would get cash only if I wanted it, not because I actually needed it. I don't need it at all anymore and going to an ATM feels a little like going out of my way for something that I don't actually need. This change has happened gradually over the past 10 - 20 years and I realize now that it happened almost without me noticing. When the State Quarters first circulated in 1999 I always had at least one in my pocket. Vending machines didn't take plastic back then so one needed cash. Now I can count on one hand how many of the ATB Quarters I've actually had in my pocket or held in my hands. I haven't even seen most of them up close. To see them, I would have to get cash and use it, but I don't need cash so I don't.

Cash will likely stay around for a while, some sectors of the economy still rely on it, but for many people it is no longer necessary. More people can now easily live without it. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not completely sure. There are trade offs and pros and cons to both cash and plastic, some of which have appeared in this thread. Regardless, I find it hard to ignore just how much the economy now pushes me towards purchasing with plastic.