Paying cash instead of CC-is it spreading?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Thank you. I too had googled a bit and found both those cites. I kept digging hoping to find something which was a breakdown of fuel sales by grade, but no luck. Then I ran out of time.

Not your fault, but I dislike the way the first article freely mixed different ideas. For regular it says “drivers own a vehicle” but for premium is says “drive a vehicle”. It happens that my wife and I jointly own 2 cars: one regular, one premium. She exclusively drives the regular one, I the premium one. So are we part of the 70%, the 16%, or both? Just sloppy writing on the part of the article. Or did the data come from a sloppily-written survey of car owners/drivers and who knows how each responder interpreted the sloppy questions? Impossible to say.

Ignoring that quibble and assuming what they really mean is the 70%, 16%, etc., numbers are percentages of vehicles, not of owners or drivers …

So 7 years ago (2016) it was 70% regular gas by vehicle count. I’m going to suggest that number has only shrunk since, but not by a huge margin. Maybe it’s 65%, might even be just above 60%, but I bet it’s not into the 50s. And a bunch of that shrinkage will be from more EVs, not just from more premium-burning cars. Although as the demands for more powerful cars have only increased since those halcyon Dayes of Yore, a LOT of new cars are turboed or more-turboed than earlier models and requiring more octane to make that work. So the premium burning fleet is probably closer to 20% now, maybe a smidgen higher. Still a far cry from my initial claim of “half the cars”.

The Forbes list suffers from the fact it lists things like Chevy’s that you might expect to burn regular but don’t. They skip all the car brands that aren’t prosaic. With no clear indication of where that cut-off is. So while their info is not false, it gives a false impression of the rarity of premium-burning cars. If you added all the models of the Mercedes, BMWs, Lexuses, Infinitis, and the less mass-market hot / luxo car brands to the list of premium burners the list would be more complete, much longer, and also deliver a more accurate picture.

For sure anyone’s local experience depends on where they are and what economic level surrounds you. Whole lotta diesels if you live rural, whole lotta premium-burners if you live rich-ish, whole lotta rat-trap regulars if you live working poor, whole lotta Teslas if you live Bay Area, etc.

In my comfy-class zipcode, I see more BMWs & Mercedes than Toyotas. All the Deutschmobiles burn premium. I would totally expect that gas stations in that zipcode sell equal amounts of premium and regular. They also charge about a buck a gallon more than the next zipcode over, so only the “I don’t care what gas costs” folks buy there. The budget-conscious folks buy while passing through other nearby zipcodes.

62

I’ve seen articles that were supposedly reporting the findings of studies but the thing I’ve always noticed is that the articles, at least , don’t make any distinction between the type of business and the average bill. I don’t want to bring thousands of dollars in cash to pay a party venue, so they will probably lose some business if they don’t take credit cards - but it might cost the food cart on the street more in fees than they make from whatever additional business they get.

( I’m not talking about a fancy truck at a food truck festival or in the parking lot of a bar. I mean literally on the street selling hot dogs or regular coffee and bagels or piraguas ( a type of shaved ice)

63

Ref @Mighty_Mouse’s comments a few posts ago as an expert in the field …

Clearly large businesses have non-trivial costs of cash management. And are aware of the same up at the levels where decisions are made on which payment methods to accept where. One would certainly hope so.

I’ll suggest that for the basic Mom’n’Pop one-off retailer or restaurant, they have nearly zero actual cost of cash handling. The owners (who are often the primary behind-the-counter employees as well) largely seem to have the perception that cash handling is costless to them. And their perception drives their decisions.

Whether they take cash or not, they’ll have a cash register or POS system to track sales. The trips to the bank to turn in big bills and obtain small bills and coins for change is just a daily (or weekly) routine. As is counting their cash after they close. Yes, it takes time. But it doesn’t represent an expenditure of funds. So seems costless to them. Their “drop safe” is their back pocket or a shoebox or cheap lockbox in the back room. If they don’t bank daily, the excess comes home with them every night and is stored at home in a different shoebox.

And so it goes until / unless they get robbed by bad guys or skimmed by dishonest employees. That might trigger greater awareness of at least one contingent cost of cash handling.

As mentioned, to the degree they choose to skim (some of) their cash sales, that cash comes with a 20 to 30% cost savings over neutrality. In that scenario net, net, accepting cash pays, not costs.

64

[quote=“rbroome, post:45, topic:993862, full:true”]
I live on the Northshore and I see this in more and more restaurants and gas stations (by cash the stations seem to mean mostly the corporate credit card), but few other places .[/quote]

Sometimes, the Northshore is like a whole 'nother country from New Orleans, despite the relative proximity :grin: I will start keeping an eye out for more places down here doing this - that new bakery I mentioned surprised me with the credit-card upcharge. Similar places that opened, say, five years ago never charged CC and cash at different levels.

Regarding gas-station loyalty cards (or corporate credit cards and the like): That actually is common down here, and I never thought of it as a cash discount. In all the local gas stations that I’m aware of – minus one – if you walk to the cashier and pay cash for your gas, it’s no cheaper than paying with your own CC or debit card at the pump. However, you can get an Exxon card (or whatever) and save a nickel a gallon – maybe more than that these days.

65

Same here, however, on some of those multiple thousands (or sometimes tens of thousands) of dollar B2B orders, if they offer to mail a check*, I’ll happily take that instead. 3% on a $10,000 order is $300. Of all the banks I’ve used over the years, I don’t think any of them have charged more than a quarter to deposit a check. That’s a pretty nice savings, especially for a mom and pop place like us.

*Worth noting that half the time they’re offering to mail a check, it’s because they’re just as aware of the credit card fees.

66

Oh, I don’t push to use a credit card and if the client asks my preference, I do say Zelle or check vs CC. But some clients are all about their CC points, so I will state something like “CC is fine; my preference is Zelle, but I can accommodate whatever you need.” And a lot of times, they’ll just Zelle me the payment, anyway. I have also gotten the “if I pay in cash do can I get a discount?” client, and I always state the price is the same.

67

I haven’t seen this in my area, except some estate sales state they have a 3% surcharge for credit cards.

Personally, now that we’ve progressed beyond the bad old days of having to carry cash around, I never want to deal with having to do so again. If a place doesn’t want my card, they don’t want my money.

68

I wouldn’t want to have to deal with cash either, especially not large amounts, given that the largest bill is “only” a hundred dollars and so a purchase of something in the thousands is going to quickly involve unwieldy amounts of paper.

69

Right. We noticed less acceleration using regular.

Grocery stores are different as they have to take WIC, etc, so they might be in the check taking business for some time.

I write checks for two bills that have not yet done auto-pay.

70

I was just visiting my son in Boston and read a story in the paper about businesses that won’t accept cash. The three they mentioned were all sports centers: TD garden, Fenway, and wherever the Pats (pretend to) play. You cannot buy a hot dog with cash. The commonwealth has a law requring businesses to take cash, but these places have reverse ATMs (MTAs?) that take cash and emit a debit card good for that amount of cash. Since there are no fees (any fees paid by the vendor), the government signed off on it.

[hijack] We went to a restaurant and in small print at the bottom of the menu there was a statement (emphasis added): “In order to avoid raising prices we add to every bill a 4% surcharge for administrative expenses.”
What a load of codswallop! Fortunately, the food was superb.[/hijack]

71

Yeah, I have to agree. :slight_smile:

72

I’d suggest Nawlin’s is a whole 'nuther state from Louisiana, and maybe even a whole 'nuther country from the USA.

I felt similarly about Las Vegas while I lived there. And still mostly think that.

73

I’m reminded of a quote I saw in a museum in Nola once, which really explained things to me:

“New Orleans should not be considered the southernmost American colonial city, but rather the northernmost Caribbean colonial city.”

74

When I flew in to Ireland to live about 8 years ago I had little-to-no cash of any kind to my name. My Chase credit card without any chip was my Airbnb lodging and when I’d go to Tesco to buy food they didn’t know what to do with it. No mag-stripes - they lived in the future and if it had no chip the manager needed to be called to approve it.

In the UK now I have noticed more people paying in cash. I’d thought Covid would put an end to cash. Only places that definitely only take cash are barbershops and money-laundering pizza shops. Yet at the market I am seeing more and more people count out pounds and coins while I wave my Monzo card and move on.

75

My Mazda MX-5 (Miata) has the same recommendation. They recommend premium, but regular won’t hurt the engine. My assumption is that new cars are smart enough to detect what octane fuel you’re using, and adjust the timing accordingly. So it will run fine and not damage the engine if you use regular, but you won’t get the horsepower they advertised.

I personally always use premium. I specifically bought a 2019 model because they increased the horsepower that year, from 150ish HP up to 181 HP. I paid for 181 HP, so I want to actually get 181 HP.

76

you are probably aware of this, but you most likely do 90-98% of your driving in rev’s where you dont even “get” 50% of those 181hp

77

A 3% surcharge is somewhat reasonable, most merchant accounts that accept credit cards such as Stripe or Square charge about 3.5%. There is one local business that charges 6% and I’m not sure if they are getting a terrible deal from their bank or if they are just gouging. But I avoid them either way.

78

Does anyone add a 1% surcharge for cash?

Or a 20% discount for CC, as that’s how much extra business they bring in?