I used to use cash below about $20 and credit card above that.
For the last decade or so I only use cash when there’s no alternative; everything else is credit. I carry 3 credit cards: Personal, Business 1, and Business 2. In a pinch any of them can be used as a spare if one won’t work for some reason. Emergency use of the “wrong” card complicates bookkeeping at tax time, but not much.
I carry a couple $20s as emergency money but can go months before one is used. If I do pay cash I leave any change in coins behind. Don’t need 'em and they’re worth essentially zero.
While traveling for work I have a small stash of $1s that I carry just for handing out as tips. But they’re never used for any other purpose. A $1 newspaper or $2 coffee goes on the relevant credit card.
Yeah. Apple Pay if they take it, since it doesn’t involve taking anything out of my pocket at all, then usually credit card for larger stuff, cash for smaller stuff.
Regardless of how you pay for your purchases, tipping in cash is always best, in my opinion. Some restaurants will take merchant fees out of the tip, so if they pay 3% on the transaction, and you leave a $3 tip, the person you’re tipping only gets $2.91. They get the entire amount if you pay in cash. A few cents here and there may not be much to people in good-paying jobs, but in low-paid jobs like the service industry, 1¢ could be the difference in whether your rent check bounces or not.
And some restaurants are just plain underhanded, and credit card tips don’t end up going to waitstaff at all!:mad:
I charge any tips on meals, cab rides, etc. I tip heavy, so even if the merchant is snagging the 3% the worker is doing well off me. I’m not willing to mess with cash just to offset the rare and undetectable cases where the owner / manager is stealing from the tipped staff. Which would be a hanging offense if I was Emperor.
Decades ago when I often used cash I’d sometimes leave a cash tip on a charged meal, especially if the tip amount was about $5 or $10 so it was easy. Nowadays it’s just not worth my hassle.
Carry cash as we are out in the county, go to yard sales and when buying from that ‘back in the holler’ on country roads where green in the hand is the best bargaining medium a fist full of 100’s works wonders…
Used to carry a lot of CC cards as many places did not take them all. Still deal with a few like that but, pretty much anyplace will take the one I like best now.
I have had a green AMEX card since forever as it was the first one I ever got ( I’m 73 so it was a long time ago ) and it still has the best no hassle customer service and they have always taken ANY problem ANY one or place has caused and fixed it with no cost to me. So in sketchy places or cases I pull the green AMEX card.
I was once stuck in a different country without any cash & desperately wanted to buy something to eat. A friend advised me to just use a credit card. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would even accept a credit card for a purchase under $20. It worked! They took the card - and - this is the amazing part - they didn’t even ask for my signature!!! Well, it turns out that it’s not uncommon for small purchases - I had just never done it before & had never known the tradition.
Very strange. Was it so long ago that they charged more for a credit card purchase? I understand that this, too, is a thing of the past. Funny, nobody ever bothered to tell me. You’d have thought it would’ve been on the news.
At least in the US charging extra for a credit card purchase has been against Visa & Mastercard’s rules from when they were invented back in the 1960s. I wonder where you got the opposite idea.
A very few places historically offered discounts for cash. Typically gas stations for gasoline, not merchandise. Or offered the same discount for using their own-brand card.
Minimum purchase sizes to use credit cards have come and gone a couple times. Mostly in the Dayes of Yore it was impolite to mess with a card for much less than $20. The merchant would process the transaction, but the cashier might grumble.
Cash if I have the amount on me. Sometimes I go get cash if the store discounts for using it. Next, debit card up to my transaction limit. Last or if online, credit card. Paid off ASAP.
It really bugs me that we all usually pay a portion of the fees for credit card use, even if we are paying cash, or debit card too. Can be a double hit if you get a debit card transaction fee. I think it should be law that only the card users pay the extra fees. Even when I use the card.
I never use a debit card. I’m not even totally sure where mine is. My reasoning is that if whatever method of electronic payment I’m making is stolen (credit or debit), yes, the bank will eventually get it sorted out, but in the mean time I’d much rather have my credit card maxed out than have my checking account drained. Or rather, it’s much easier to just switch to my other credit card for a few days than explain to everyone why I can’t pay them. Utilities, mortgage company, credit cards etc.
Run my credit up, just don’t take my cash.
For a second, I was on board with that. I’d be okay with credit card terminals that would have the user swipe their card, figure out how much they’re going to charge the merchant and then add on a percentage of that fee to the consumer’s total (keep in mind, it could be a small percentage, 100% or more than 100%).
That, of course, would encourage more people to use cash and, I think, a lot of people don’t realize that banks charge businesses to handle/deposit cash as well. In fact, one of the reasons stores are so eager to offer you cash back when you use your debit card is because it’s that much less cash that they have to take to the bank (especially if an armored truck is involved).
But, to be fair, we do pay considerably more to our credit card processor than we do to the bank (for handling cash).
Pay by credit card for online things, department store things, grocery store when I don’t have enough cash. We pay it off in full on time every month. I prefer to buy things with cash, but there just is never enough! Some days I seem to hand out $20 bills all day long. I hate scrabbling for loose bills to pay for one more thing.
Agree. I didn’t want to get all the way into it. There are so many costs and people taking out a percent here and there. The services do have costs. These days with the computing power, they can be more easily and cheaply sorted and allocated. So the buyer can get the best price for method of payment. I just got percentage off my Chinese food the other night due to paying cash. What a treat.
My county tax is increased by the amount the CC company is going to charge them for the CC so a check it is. Actually that is what they say but they actually charge me a % of my tax bill. It amounts to about $25 for a $1000 tax bill. Yepper, I will write a check for that difference.
