Reasons to carry cash

[Cudzoziemiec]

On Sunday I was riding through a village when, outside the church, I saw a cake stall. A blackboard announced "Cyclists! Stop for CAKE! 50p, raising funds for foodbank." So I stopped, obviously. And didn't get any cake, because it was just a small table with cake under a glass dome and an honesty box. I had no cash on me – haven't carried any since lockdown and had been slowly getting out of the habit of using (but not of carrying) before that – and there was no other way to pay, and no one around.

This got me thinking about possible reasons for carrying cash. Here's a list I've come up with. Feel free to add other reasons as they occur to you and to comment on the ones that have occurred to me:

• Unattended honesty box situations
• People selling jam etc from their gardens
• Leaving tips for waiters
• For use in small shops that still don't take cards
• For small purchases in shops with a card minimum
• For shops in countries with a card levy
• Giving money to buskers or beggars
• When it's necessary to bribe policemen, border agents, hotel staff, etc
• Paying for photocopying etc in the library (they only take cash here)
• Gifts to kids
• As backup if cards fail/are rejected or get lost/stolen
• Old skool audaxes with village hall controls run by the WI or similar

It's unlikely many of these will happen in a typical day. Some of them might never happen through your entire life (I've only once had to bribe a border agent-type person, and that wasn't even at a border...) and many of them are location specific, while others can be avoided by going to a different shop (usually). But occasionally, it would be nice to have had that cake. Nevertheless, I haven't started carrying cash yet. But maybe...

[offcumden]

Like you, I've not been carrying cash during lockdown, and it hasn't been a problem so far. 

Looking at your impressive list, I was reminded of an occasion years ago when coins of the realm came in very useful.  I punctured, which was when I discovered that my tool roll was not properly secure and my tyre levers had apparently shaken free somewhere down the road. I seem to remember that a combination of 20p and 10p pieces enabled me to get the tyre (a lightweight 23mm) off surprisingly quickly.  Don't try this with Marathon Pluses 

There must surely be other possibilities for using coins, or indeed notes (tyre boot?) to get you out of a fix. Having said that, I think I'll take my purse with me tomorrow!

[Cudzoziemiec]

ISTR someone commenting that the new plastic notes were a great improvement on paper ones as emergency tyre boots. Rather an expensive one if you've only got a tenner.

[Basil]

Our butcher sells a really good light rye sourdough. Only problem is that it comes from a baker in Newcastle Emlyn, and he doesn't want the money to go through his till.  So if you want bread, you have to give him £3 in cash, and in change. This he chucks into a separate jar for the baker.
So, every Tuesday (bread delivery day) I have to go to the convenience store, take a tenner from their ATM (if I don't have a fiver left from last week), and buy something for less than £2. (Usually the I newspaper)
It's an absolute pain.

While I'm here, has anyone else experienced their card payment occasionally being declined when tapping?  Works fine if I then actually put the card in and enter my pin.  I guess that there must be a limit on the number of times that a card may be tapped before pin conformation is required.

[Cudzoziemiec]

While I'm here, has anyone else experienced their card payment occasionally being declined when tapping?  Works fine if I then actually put the card in and enter my pin.  I guess that there must be a limit on the number of times that a card may be tapped before pin conformation is required.

Yes. It's annoying, isn't it? Or maybe it's a reassuring security feature. I think it's every ten transactions.

[Efrogwr]

Like you, I've not been carrying cash during lockdown, and it hasn't been a problem so far. 

Looking at your impressive list, I was reminded of an occasion years ago when coins of the realm came in very useful.  I punctured, which was when I discovered that my tool roll was not properly secure and my tyre levers had apparently shaken free somewhere down the road. I seem to remember that a combination of 20p and 10p pieces enabled me to get the tyre (a lightweight 23mm) off surprisingly quickly.  Don't try this with Marathon Pluses 

There must surely be other possibilities for using coins, or indeed notes (tyre boot?) to get you out of a fix. Having said that, I think I'll take my purse with me tomorrow!

I've used small coins as improvised screwdrivers.

A sock full of coins could serve as a substitute blackjack.

[Andrij]

Our butcher sells a really good light rye sourdough. Only problem is that it comes from a baker in Newcastle Emlyn, and he doesn't want the money to go through his till.  So if you want bread, you have to give him £3 in cash, and in change. This he chucks into a separate jar for the baker.
So, every Tuesday (bread delivery day) I have to go to the convenience store, take a tenner from their ATM (if I don't have a fiver left from last week), and buy something for less than £2. (Usually the I newspaper)
It's an absolute pain.

Alternatively, pop in to your bank or PO and get a bag of £1 coins? Good for quite a few loaves (assuming you don't spend the coins on other things).

[Tim Hall]

While I'm here, has anyone else experienced their card payment occasionally being declined when tapping?  Works fine if I then actually put the card in and enter my pin.  I guess that there must be a limit on the number of times that a card may be tapped before pin conformation is required.

Yes. It's annoying, isn't it? Or maybe it's a reassuring security feature. I think it's every ten transactions.

Yes. I tried to tap at Mr Sainsbury's House of Toothy Comestibles and had the card declined. I thought this was down to having No Money so used another card. Later it got declined at Timpson's*, where the Nice Young Man explained it was as you describe. I stuck it in the slot and enterted my PIN and all was well. I guess I haven't come up against it before as I'd been doing larger, over the tap and go limit, transactions which would reset the PIN counter.

* Timpson's have a laudable policy of employing ex offenders. Old Bailey hack, Rumpole of The Bailey keeps body and soul together by defending minor South London villains, The Timson family. Sadly they don't quite spell it the same.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think it's reset by any transaction using the PIN, so ATM transactions also reset it. But I don't know whether online transactions count towards the pin-less limit.

[Dave_C]

I have used coins as s rew drivers in the past. I have also used notes and tyre boots. I bought some jam in Brough near Hull a few years ago on a DIY 600 to fill bread bought along the way to eat.
Then two years ago I attempted to buy cycle mitts on the Borders of Belgium but the shop only accepted Maestro. Not Visa or MasterCard, both of which I had... I had no cash on me as we were returning to the ferry. When back home I enquired about a Maestro card with my bank and they looked at me like I was from the local asylum and told me banks stopped issuing Maestro in the 90s ..

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[FifeingEejit]

On Sunday I was riding through a village when, outside the church, I saw a cake stall. A blackboard announced "Cyclists! Stop for CAKE! 50p, raising funds for foodbank." So I stopped, obviously. And didn't get any cake, because it was just a small table with cake under a glass dome and an honesty box. I had no cash on me – haven't carried any since lockdown and had been slowly getting out of the habit of using (but not of carrying) before that – and there was no other way to pay, and no one around.

This got me thinking about possible reasons for carrying cash. Here's a list I've come up with. Feel free to add other reasons as they occur to you and to comment on the ones that have occurred to me:

• Unattended honesty box situations
• People selling jam etc from their gardens
• Leaving tips for waiters
• For use in small shops that still don't take cards
• For small purchases in shops with a card minimum
• For shops in countries with a card levy
• Giving money to buskers or beggars
• When it's necessary to bribe policemen, border agents, hotel staff, etc
• Paying for photocopying etc in the library (they only take cash here)
• Gifts to kids
• As backup if cards fail/are rejected or get lost/stolen
• Old skool audaxes with village hall controls run by the WI or similar

It's unlikely many of these will happen in a typical day. Some of them might never happen through your entire life (I've only once had to bribe a border agent-type person, and that wasn't even at a border...) and many of them are location specific, while others can be avoided by going to a different shop (usually). But occasionally, it would be nice to have had that cake. Nevertheless, I haven't started carrying cash yet. But maybe...

When I worked for a certain cash machine manufacturer in their R&D there was always the need to convince people that cash will always be useful, and so to therefore would cash machines.
I don't know what the people that went to the trade shows actually told customers what future cash might have, but the behind the scenes comments about what might still need to be paid for in cash in future isn't in that list...

It was their major fear, if cash is no longer required, what purpose the ATM?
So all the work relating to contactless I did was "defensive" i.e. how does our machine still have a purpose in a cash free world.

Never really envisaged the rise in honesty box shops tbh.

While I'm here, has anyone else experienced their card payment occasionally being declined when tapping?  Works fine if I then actually put the card in and enter my pin.  I guess that there must be a limit on the number of times that a card may be tapped before pin conformation is required.

Yes. It's annoying, isn't it? Or maybe it's a reassuring security feature. I think it's every ten transactions.

Set by the bank, I think mine is 5, it's usually x transactions since last PIN transaction.
Pain in the hoop, but you can avoid it by using Google or Apple pay because the device being unlocked is apparently acceptable security.
I'm sure there was initially the possibility of doing the pin from a tap, but you'd have needed to hold the card in range for the comms to keep going (would be the same on an ATM)

The EMV and RFID specs were public IIRC

[mark]

I used a couple of US$20 bills as a tire boot on my first UK cycling tour. Made for a great story when I got back to the US and spent them.

I give Clif bars to beggars, the way I'm not feeding anybody's drug/alcohol habit.

Card minimums are becoming pretty rare around here.

[robgul]

While I'm here, has anyone else experienced their card payment occasionally being declined when tapping?  Works fine if I then actually put the card in and enter my pin.  I guess that there must be a limit on the number of times that a card may be tapped before pin conformation is required.

Yes. It's annoying, isn't it? Or maybe it's a reassuring security feature. I think it's every ten transactions.

I think you'll find it's an algorithm based on the number of transactions - the frequency - value . . . .  a couple of times I've made, say, 5 or 6 purchases within a 30 minute period and had the PIN request - other times I've probably gone 30 - 40 transactions over an extended period with just tapping.

Rob

[robgul]

Since 28 March I have only spent £10 in cash ... that was last week when I joined the street's weekly beer syndicate - 4 pint plastic bottle of ale from a local craft brewer that is delivering.   

Unfortunately I have managed to spend rather a lot in that period with cards, bank transfers and Paypal.

Rob

[ElyDave]

Although I've spent very little, I still always put a plastic fiver or tenner in my pocket when out on the bike, just in case. Habit I guess.

To add to the list though, not becasue it requires cash, but I've always preferred to pay for my local car park 5-min walk from the station with cash.  All my £1 adn 50p coins went into the little drawer in the car for when I neede to get into the office or similar.  The advantage over paying by phone was in managing receipts and claiming back expenses.

Now I don't have a car, I have pile of pound coins sitting on my dresser with no purpose in life.  (Long story, sold car three weeks before lockdown with full intent to buy another, found one, astronomically inflated price and no willingness to haggle, where's that Life of Brian hard man when you need him?)

[Regulator]

I'm doing shopping for our elderly neighbours, who pay me in cash (a mixture of notes and coins). 

But I've not actually used any cash in the last couple of months so I now have a wallet bursting with notes and a large bowl full of coins...

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Regarding buskers in London, buskers on the Underground grequently have card machines these days. Those white things abotu the size of a fag packet, usually on a little stand.
I shamefully admit I usually am a bit miffed as the donation is 4 quid and I would usually throw a pound coin in their guitar case. I may have the 4 quid figure wrong, but it is more than my normal amount. Which reflects that I am old and out of touch wiht the real value of a pound.

[andytheflyer]

I shamefully admit I usually am a bit miffed as the donation is 4 quid and I would usually throw a pound coin in their guitar case. I may have the 4 quid figure wrong, but it is more than my normal amount. Which reflects that I am old and out of touch wiht the real value of a pound.

I tend to go on the price of a pint for this type of donation.   Which, I suppose, could be well more than £4 in Lunnun. Which is why I never go ther anymore.

[rogerzilla]

I bet Cummings wished he'd carried cash.  And used a mate's* car.  And a burner phone.

*ok, he doesn't have any, at least in London

[Cudzoziemiec]

When I worked for a certain cash machine manufacturer in their R&D there was always the need to convince people that cash will always be useful, and so to therefore would cash machines.
I don't know what the people that went to the trade shows actually told customers what future cash might have, but the behind the scenes comments about what might still need to be paid for in cash in future isn't in that list...

It was their major fear, if cash is no longer required, what purpose the ATM?
So all the work relating to contactless I did was "defensive" i.e. how does our machine still have a purpose in a cash free world.

Never really envisaged the rise in honesty box shops tbh.

I guess the behind the scenes comments refer to:

I give Clif bars to beggars, the way I'm not feeding anybody's drug/alcohol habit.

And I guess even there, it only applies at street level, with the mister bigs channelling the money through front business and so on.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Since 28 March I have only spent £10 in cash ... that was last week when I joined the street's weekly beer syndicate - 4 pint plastic bottle of ale from a local craft brewer that is delivering.   

Unfortunately I have managed to spend rather a lot in that period with cards, bank transfers and Paypal.

Rob

And that's another reason: to keep track of expenditure and to make it feel real. Doesn't apply to everyone, some people will find it easier to control in electronic format (and some might prefer cheques!) but certainly some people might eg put £x in cash in their pocket and that's their spending limit for the day.

[Polar Bear]

In your extensive list you seem to have missed "spending a penny".   

I am by nature a cash person.  Before lockdown I would shop in small, local shops, use the market and even pay by cash in cafes etc.  Lockdown has forced me to go contactless which is a real pain because I cannot read the screen to know if the transaction has been accepted or declined.  Further, since they upped the contactless transaction limit my card seems to be rejected once a week.  Before that, never.  Perhaps that is mere coincidence though as I haven't been using the cash point.

I did my usual weekly cash withdrawal on the Monday before lockdown and I am still spending it.  A couple of small local suppliers are still accepting cash but it amounts to about a tenner a week on average.

I also keep an emergency wad in the house for those "just in case" moments.  I started doing it 20 years ago when my father became seriously ill.  A taxi ride of 35 miles at 2 in the morning was a distinct possibility.

I cannot wait to get back to proper money and away from the prying eyes of government and the bank.

[Cudzoziemiec]

In your extensive list you seem to have missed "spending a penny".   

Good point! I can't actually remember the last time I had to pay to use a public toilet - possibly because the council was austeritised into closing them all (I think they were free before that but can't actually remember).

I am by nature a cash person.  Before lockdown I would shop in small, local shops, use the market and even pay by cash in cafes etc.  Lockdown has forced me to go contactless which is a real pain because I cannot read the screen to know if the transaction has been accepted or declined.  Further, since they upped the contactless transaction limit my card seems to be rejected once a week.  Before that, never.  Perhaps that is mere coincidence though as I haven't been using the cash point.

Using contactless does not mean avoiding small, local shops. I haven't been in anything bigger than the Co-op since lockdown, and that only about twice. The most pro-actively card only shops here are a not-for-profit bakery and an organic wholefood cooperative.

The problem of reading the screen is a valid one, even for those of us with "normal" eyesight (the optician tells me mine is good... at least for my age... )

[andyoxon]

Fish & Chips.  Most of the chippys I've been in relieve you of cash only. 

[Jaded]

When I worked for a certain cash machine manufacturer in their R&D there was always the need to convince people that cash will always be useful, and so to therefore would cash machines.
I don't know what the people that went to the trade shows actually told customers what future cash might have, but the behind the scenes comments about what might still need to be paid for in cash in future isn't in that list...

It was their major fear, if cash is no longer required, what purpose the ATM?
So all the work relating to contactless I did was "defensive" i.e. how does our machine still have a purpose in a cash free world.

Never really envisaged the rise in honesty box shops tbh.

I guess the behind the scenes comments refer to:

I give Clif bars to beggars, the way I'm not feeding anybody's drug/alcohol habit.

And I guess even there, it only applies at street level, with the mister bigs channelling the money through front business and so on.

I imagine the behind the scenes comments were referring to a baser, and much older trade.