Hundred-ish (USD) with a share of small notes for tips and vending machines. As mentioned above, if I know I’m traveling to a more cash-centric location or activity I will adjust up.
I teach a financial literacy class to high school age kids. I tell them that one should always carry enough cash on them to buy, at minimum, a couple meals and pay for a couple day’s worth of reliable transportation. For some people that’s cash for a couple of bus or train passes and a Cliff Bar or two and a Coke at the local corner store. For others it’s a tank of gas and a burger at Burger King. Everyone’s needs are different, but don’t let yourself get stranded with no way to get home or buy yourself a meal.
I also tell them they should carry some $1s for use in vending machines and, if they both have a car and live anywhere where there’s even a sliver of a chance that they’ll need to use a parking meter, to keep a few bucks in assorted quarters and dimes in the car in case they need to feed a parking meter.
Everyone’s needs are different but there are times when a POS system is down and you’ll have to either use cash or not buy.
Which is why I like $50 bills. Carrying a few hundred dollars in $20 bills makes for a fat wallet, but 4 $50 bills is hardly noticeable and can really save your bacon.
I drive ~70 miles a day and the only lunch I have is whatever I bring with me. So I always keep enough cash on me to fill up my car twice and get a few days’ worth of lunch from a local deli that’s on my way to work. For me that’s a minimum of $150. I rarely need it as I plan my lunches at home and usually fill up my tank on a regular schedule, but I keep that cash on me just in case.
Recently I left work and the low tire warning light came on as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot. I stopped and checked the pressure with a manual gauge. The tire was low but not unsafe to drive on. There was a gas station with an air pump about 10 miles down the road. I had three choices: drive to the gas station and use their pump to fill up my tire, call my son and have him fill my air compressor and bring it to me so I could air up the tire, or put on the spare. Of course, I chose to drive to the gas station and fill my tire.
Which cost me $2. In quarters. Annoying, and a complete rip-off, but still I was very glad I had the foresight to carry change in my glove box.
So to answer the OP, I usually keep at least $200 in my wallet at all times: a few 50s and a mix of 10s and 5s. The $150 for emergencies and $50 or $100 for coffee or just random errands that might pop up. I keep about $5 in 1s or dollar coins on me, any more than that I stick in a wall safe until I have a stack worth taking to the bank. Several times a week I go to a local coffee stand and get a latte, for that I always pay cash. At the end of the day all my loose change goes into a coffee can, and since my bank does not take change, it simply accumulates. By now I think I have 7 or 8 Illy coffee cans full off random loose change, one of which is nothing but dollar coins 
. I also have probably $10 worth of the aforementioned quarters and dimes in an old soft sided drawstring eyeglass case buried in my glove box – the $2 has been replenished, of course.
I am similar. The card case holds my driver’s license, my primary credit card and 3-4 tri-folded USD big bills. That’s it. Everything else is in my phone. The physical CC is only for the increasingly few places that can’t tap a phone to pay. F-ing Neanderthals.
My last $200 withdrawal from an ATM was May 19. I still have $132 in my wallet. I reckon I might go a year without hitting the ATM again.
Even the bloody lemonade stands are taking Venmo now. Today’s end of summer ice cream social was electronic payment only.
Until last year the backyard vegetable stands, the backyard chicken keepers, the neighborhood sourdough bread baker, the beach ice cream stand and even the nearest coffee shop were cash only, but there seems to have been a tipping point and now all of them take Venmo.
On the other hand my wife hasn’t used cash at all in China since 2018.
That’s a more challenging question socially here. We have people living in homeless shelters and people living in mansions, not mere McMansions
Are you sure you want to go there?
As to the less contentious topic …
My own cash consumption is ~20-40 per week which is mostly tipping the musicians at the end of the evening. Other than that, I don’t spend much cash.
For many years now, I’ve been carrying all my valuables in a small credit card wallet, not a regular one, because everything of financial value – credit and debit cards, health card, dental card, driver’s license, points cards – are all identical plastic cards. So when my wallet mysteriously disappeared over a year ago, there was almost nothing of any significance in it and I never bothered to replace it. If it was stolen the thief must have been very disappointed.
Anyway, the credit card wallet doesn’t hold cash and I have no other way to carry cash, nor have I ever needed it. One time I was slightly worried when I unexpectedly found myself in a parking lot that charged a fee, but, unsurprisingly, it turned out to be trivial to use plastic in the validating machine. In fact I’m not even sure that it was equipped to take cash.
Both vending machines and parking meters often accept credit cards today.
I don’t know the dimensions of Canadian currency.
But I know that a USD bill folded in thirds is just slightly smaller than a standard credit card and also slightly thinner. Dimensionally, three tri-folded US bills are just about a perfect 1:1 replacement for a single credit/debit card.
None around here take cash. Card or do without.
Exactly. So a couple of one dollar bills aren’t very helpful.
Canadian currency is almost identical in size to US currency, actually very slightly smaller (by a tiny fraction of an inch). But stuffing even a few folded bills into my CC wallet would make it awkwardly thick. If I absolutely had to carry cash I’d just stick a few loose bills in a back pocket.
I figured that would be the trend. More convenient all around, and avoids having some grunt coming around to gather up the cash, counting it, and hauling it off to the bank. We’re pretty much in a cashless society now. The few service people who aren’t set up to take credit cards are happy to be paid via electronic transfer. Literally the only use I have for cash any more is the lawn-mowing kid who for some reason doesn’t want to use e-transfer. I suspect he just doesn’t understand how it works.
I don’t see it as terribly challenging (but don’t care if anyone answers.) Someone of somewhat meagre means might regularly buy their meals out, and buy coffee out - as opposed to my limited spending, despite a comfortable income.
You might be surprised. I take new-ish USD, crease them carefully in thirds and, as mentioned, 3 tri-folded bills neatly equal a card. 4-6 of those are my emergency / tip stash. Are CAD made of paper or Tyvek like a 21st, not 18th, century country might do?
If I get scruffy small bills in change, they get folded in a pocket and gotten rid of ASAP. Or stuffed in bucket at home for eventual return to a bank.
I took out $100 about a year ago. I still have around $70 of it. I almost never use cash (there is one restaurant I like that is cash only, other than that I never use cash).
$0.
99% of my spending is with a credit/debit card tied to my checking account. Same card is tied to Apple Pay for touch transactions with iPhone or Apple watch.
Canadian currency is described by the Bank of Canada as being made of polymer. I think in many countries improved polymer formulations have replaced Tyvek. Canadian banknotes use a special type of polymer and are loaded with anti-counterfeiting features. It’s thinner than US paper currency but the plastic may not fold as well.
$20-200. I churn through it a bit more often than some, but still less and less all the time. Haircuts (infrequent for me) and farmer’s markets are still easier with cash (for example I bought a flat of fresh strawberries for a $20 bill at a roadside stand last week to slice and freeze). The occasional random doo-dad or quick bite to eat. I used to try and always tip with cash at restaurants and what have you. But with spending less cash means fewer smaller bills, so I’ve steadily fallen out of the habit, along with the rest of the Western world.
I can pay parking meters here with a card, with coins or using an app. I prefer to use the app because if I buy less than the maximum time I can extend the session without returning to the car. Plus it’s not at all uncommon for the meter to refuse coins and/or cards.
Yeah. App all the way.
Our various local municipalities here in the Metroblob use 5 different apps for their meters. I have them all on my phone & configured for my + GFs’ cars.
Despite that irritation it’s sooo superior to fucking with coins.
Oh my, that’s an enormous waste of ressources, not only on your and everybody else’s phone to keep up with five different apps, but for developing the different apps (sunk costs now anyway) and for hosting and maintaining different servers.
Yes, we would much rather have one platform monopolize the business. I’m sure they will pass the savings on to the municipalities and citizenry in the form of lower service charges.
Methinks you underestimate how unregulated non-bank financial entities are in the US.