Cash?

[disney-inspired]

All these cashless systems do nothing but cost consumers money and make 3rd parties rich. I wish we had a law that required every business to accept cash and coins, the official tender of our country. And also force every receipt to list what fees you pay for using anything other than cash. A printed dollar should be good anywhere.

I can't believe it's not a law but I have a feeling if more companies try to do this, it will start the ball rolling.

 

[Disneylover99]

We checked out of DW on Sept. 3rd.
Pretty much used cash everywhere. No problem.

 

[reddog21]

More places should go cashless

 

[ChipnDale79]

More places should go cashless

why? Whats the benefit?

 

[pindecisive]

I don't understand. If you want to be cashless, be cashless. Does it matter if others are?

Actually I didn't say anything about others being cashless, but now that you've brought it up:

“Salmonella species, Escherichia coli and S. aureus are commonly isolated from banknotes from food outlets.”

“And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days.”

So the answer to your question is yes. Yes, it does matter to me if others transmit E coli or give me the flu.

No more just giving them some cash to run off to the concession stand to get what they want, its either take the risk of giving them my card and losing it, or having to go with them.

its not a lazy thing of going with them, its more of a cuts into some of that little freedom they get,and i think its helpful for them to order and pay for their own things sometimes too.

I think teaching kids about finance is awesome. Financial literacy is one of the many things teens struggle to learn in college.

Giving a child a bank card and teaching them how to log in, check their balance, and how to deposit earnings they may make from chores, birthday monies, or allowances will do nothing but benefit them in the long run. Showing them how by spending $1, they're actually losing $3+ over their lifetime in possible interest from that dollar is a great way to teach them how to save.

A lot of parents will hand a kid $20 and take them to a toy store to "buy whatever they want", but teaching a child how to save 30% of that $20, or how much interest that $20 will garner is invaluable. Asking them, "how long until you can pay yourself $20 from that $20?", that's huge.

 

[Disney Bobby]

why? Whats the benefit?

None. Fewer payment choices is never better.

 

[bryaalre]

None. Fewer payment choices is never better.

With a cashless system you still have the option of paying with a credit or debit card. Most systems take some sort of wallet pay that is simple to set up on your phone.

Cash, 20 years ago, was easier to use but with advancing technology and the current infrastructure in place, cash is more difficult and provides no benefit to the consumer besides the fact that they can actually see the money they are holding. You don't get a discount because you pay in cash, besides gas stations.

Cash, from the consumer or business side, can easily be lost or misplaced. With cash a business has to safe guard bills coming in and storing bills to ready for change should the need arise. There will be daily or weekly trips to the bank to deposit cash by an employee or picked up by security guards for big box stores.

Edit: To add to this, most credit cards give you some sort of rewards, miles, cash back, etc. It is not hard to get at least 1% cash back if not more. So, for most purchases using a credit card, the net payment is less than if you were to use cash.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

I like that idea.

I'm very pro-cashless. I haven't switched to magic band payments yet, but I envision this for myself over the next 5 years.

I'm the opposite, If a place won't take cash, then I don't shop there.

Psy

 

[ChipnDale79]

I think teaching kids about finance is awesome. Financial literacy is one of the many things teens struggle to learn in college.

Giving a child a bank card and teaching them how to log in, check their balance, and how to deposit earnings they may make from chores, birthday monies, or allowances will do nothing but benefit them in the long run. Showing them how by spending $1, they're actually losing $3+ over their lifetime in possible interest from that dollar is a great way to teach them how to save.

A lot of parents will hand a kid $20 and take them to a toy store to "buy whatever they want", but teaching a child how to save 30% of that $20, or how much interest that $20 will garner is invaluable. Asking them, "how long until you can pay yourself $20 from that $20?", that's huge.

we use busykid. it has a card that goes with it, its where we load allowance up too, a portion of it goes to savings.

there is still a place in our society for cash.

 

[Disney Bobby]

With a cashless system you still have the option of paying with a credit or debit card. Most systems take some sort of wallet pay that is simple to set up on your phone.

Cash, 20 years ago, was easier to use but with advancing technology and the current infrastructure in place, cash is more difficult and provides no benefit to the consumer besides the fact that they can actually see the money they are holding. You don't get a discount because you pay in cash, besides gas stations.

Cash, from the consumer or business side, can easily be lost or misplaced. With cash a business has to safe guard bills coming in and storing bills to ready for change should the need arise. There will be daily or weekly trips to the bank to deposit cash by an employee or picked up by security guards for big box stores.

Edit: To add to this, most credit cards give you some sort of rewards, miles, cash back, etc. It is not hard to get at least 1% cash back if not more. So, for most purchases using a credit card, the net payment is less than if you were to use cash.

That's not really true. Retailers mark up their products cover the fees, and you are lucky to get some of that back with rewards. But you aren't getting all of it back. So now, you are being penalize for using cash. I use a 2% card for all my purchases, except gasoline. The cash price is more than 2% cheaper than the credit price at my station.

Our government issued currency should be an option everywhere, without fees.

 

[bbeagle]

I think I saw something about Sea World/Busch Gardens going cashless. Maybe that's what you saw.

I am having trouble imagining a day where Mickey says "No thank you" to your cash.

It's going to happen sooner rather than later.

I've already been to a few theme parks (Six Flags being one of them) that won't accept cash anywhere. Our NHL, MiLB and NFL teams don't take cash at the stadiums either - just card.

They have machines at the entrances that will convert your cash to a reloadable credit card. If you leave the park/stadium with extra money on the card, no refunds. You spend the card like a regular credit card.

Oh, and that $5 hot dog at the ball park, used to be just a $5 bill. Tax was included to make the transaction simpler. No change or calculations to worry about. Not anymore. It's now $5 + tax = about $5.40. That's probably how they're saving on their credit card fees.

 

[ChipnDale79]

It's going to happen sooner rather than later.

I've already been to a few theme parks (Six Flags being one of them) that won't accept cash anywhere. Our NHL, MiLB and NFL teams don't take cash at the stadiums either - just card.

They have machines at the entrances that will convert your cash to a reloadable credit card. If you leave the park/stadium with extra money on the card, no refunds. You spend the card like a regular credit card.

Oh, and that $5 hot dog at the ball park, used to be just a $5 bill. Tax was included to make the transaction simpler. No change or calculations to worry about. Not anymore. It's now $5 + tax = about $5.40. That's probably how they're saving on their credit card fees.

can you use that card at places outside of the stadium?

 

[bbeagle]

can you use that card at places outside of the stadium?

Yes, it's just a regular Visa/Mastercard.

 

[fla4fun]

I don’t necessarily have a problem with places like theme parks going cashless, although I prefer cash in some situations. It would be less convenient for me to use credit or debit and have to reconcile a ton of small charges than to get out cash and be done with it. Plus, cash keeps me on budget. I can’t overspend when the cash runs out. However, I would just have to deal with it, should it come to pass. It’s not like I have to go to a theme park.

Where I do have a problem with cash only is when people want mainstream businesses like grocery stores or gas stations to go cashless. There will always be a segment of society that cannot get a credit card and does not have a bank account for a debit card, and they need to be able to purchase certain necessities with cash.

I worked in the hospitality industry for over twenty years. Our company tried going cashless, but we were losing too many sales, many of them very large sales. So we tried to require exact change only if using cash. That worked better, but it was finally decided that if we had to have the checks and balances in place to accept exact change, we might as well just accept cash again. I can say we had a lot less incidents of receiving counterfeit cash than we did with fraudulent card purchases.

 

[soniam]

The CC lobby is huge, so I don’t see them backing laws against using cash. It also helps cut down on employee theft. Stealing bills is a lot easier than CC fraud.

EDIT: I’m old though and still have cash. I will use a CC or GC but refuse to use a debit card or any payment card/app tied directly to my bank account, except an ATM card.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

With a cashless system you still have the option of paying with a credit or debit card. Most systems take some sort of wallet pay that is simple to set up on your phone.

Cash, 20 years ago, was easier to use but with advancing technology and the current infrastructure in place, cash is more difficult and provides no benefit to the consumer besides the fact that they can actually see the money they are holding. You don't get a discount because you pay in cash, besides gas stations.

Cash, from the consumer or business side, can easily be lost or misplaced. With cash a business has to safe guard bills coming in and storing bills to ready for change should the need arise. There will be daily or weekly trips to the bank to deposit cash by an employee or picked up by security guards for big box stores.

Edit: To add to this, most credit cards give you some sort of rewards, miles, cash back, etc. It is not hard to get at least 1% cash back if not more. So, for most purchases using a credit card, the net payment is less than if you were to use cash.

Just to add one more thing: Cash transactions take more time. You have to hand over the bills, cashier has to count them, enter the amount into the register, then make change. I'd much rather be behind people using a card that they can tap and skip all those steps.

 

[irlandaise]

You don't get a discount because you pay in cash, besides gas stations.

But it most states it's legal to add a surcharge for credit-card transactions.

To add to this, most credit cards give you some sort of rewards, miles, cash back, etc. It is not hard to get at least 1% cash back if not more. So, for most purchases using a credit card, the net payment is less than if you were to use cash.

I recently paid a 3% surcharge on some automobile work. Maybe there's a 3% cash back card, but that isn't what I have.

 

[reddog21]

why? Whats the benefit?

Your only looking at the inconvenience to you but there's 2 sides to every transaction. There's a cost to handling cash which is usually far more that CC transaction fees. No end of day cash to balance, no drawers to swap, no safes to keep money in the registers.....etc. If I owned a company and could remove cash from the equation I would do it in a heartbeat, it's one less headache to deal with.

"Research from IHL Group reveals the true cost of cash for retail stores runs anywhere from 4.7% to 15.3%. That hurts, especially in retail, where margins are notoriously slender."

Our little league went cashless this past spring and it was the best decision we could have made. No getting money from the bank, no depositing money the next day, no carrying around an envelope of cash, no adding up receipts/counting cash to make sure the balances match. We used to have a police officer walk us to our cars at night. We live in a small town so highly unlikely anything would ever happen but you never know. All that aggravation went away.

The last report that I read was that 80% of all transaction in the US are credit/debit card. The 20% that used cash 90% were transactions less that $10. That basically means 90% off all purchases in the US above $10 are paid with a debit or credit card. You personally may not love it but trends rule the world and the use of cash it dwindling worldwide not just in the US. I remember reading Sweden is trying or is in the process of making the country 100% cashless.

 

[bryaalre]

That's not really true. Retailers mark up their products cover the fees, and you are lucky to get some of that back with rewards. But you aren't getting all of it back. So now, you are being penalize for using cash. I use a 2% card for all my purchases, except gasoline. The cash price is more than 2% cheaper than the credit price at my station.

Our government issued currency should be an option everywhere, without fees.

Retailers mark up their product regardless if you pay cash or cc. So might as well pay cc to get rewards.

Where I live the cash discount is about 2.5%. My cc gets me 2% cash back. I’m not wasting my time to walk into the store to pay cash in order to save, checks math, an additional 16 cents on my whole gas purchase.

I understand you want to use cash but why risk carrying cash on you for no benefit. It’s a time waste. You have to go to a bank or atm in order to acquire it in the first place. Transactions take longer and require more labor.

There’s almost no benefit to using cash nowadays.

 

[bryaalre]

But it most states it's legal to add a surcharge for credit-card transactions.


I recently paid a 3% surcharge on some automobile work. Maybe there's a 3% cash back card, but that isn't what I have.

I would still rather eat the 1% difference between that and my card cash back than risk carrying hundreds or thousands of dollars on me to pay for things.