For me, I think it was March 16 2020, when Santa Cruz County (I think, I’m not finding a good cite for the day, but IIRC was a Monday) issued “shelter in place”. I was at a local liquor store when I heard, bought extra beer, because why not? Since then it’s been all credit cards either in person (maybe 3 times) or via internet purchases or internet charged deliveries where the tip is computed.
I was thinking about this since I have a change jar that slowly fills up, and it’s weird that the level is now static. I mostly use cash only for convenience/liquor stores and nothing else.
Laundromat. Already had quarters, in rolls. Bit of an emergency, since I have no machine at home, and it’s been a month or more. I’ll have to get more quarters, if I want to do it again.
I mostly use debit cards for everything, and my main cash purchases are lottery tickets and occasional lunches when I’m out of the house at lunchtime. No eating out (or going out much) any more, and I started buying my weekly lottery tickets online. My bank records show my last $40 cash withdrawal March 8 - it’s all still in my wallet. Everything I need to pay for is now either debit or credit online or debit tap payment if I need to get something in person.
Since we can’t take tips at the store where I work (although we now have a work-around for customers who get insistent) I’ve been using the “keep the change” change to top off the tally for those customers who are coming up slightly short due to lack of funds. Won’t work for a major shortfall, but it sure helps with the “dollar short” category.
Oh, the OP’s question - last time was, depending on how you look at it, either the cup of tea I bought last Monday, or the quarters I used to do my wash yesterday.
My building doesn’t have a change machine in the laundry room, so I wound up going to the bank drive-through for a roll. You have to use the lane next to the building wall, the one with the little drawer thing, because rolls of coins are too heavy for the pneumatic tubes. Just in case anyone else needs coins for something.
Two days ago. Pretty much every grocery store is now accepting card payments only to reduce handling (preferably contactless), but I go to one really old-school greengrocers which only accepts cash.
Even before the shutdown, it was pretty much the only place I needed cash for.
I spent actual cash yesterday, perhaps the first time since February 12, 2020. The reason was that it was connected with some government thing and a cash transaction apparently was required because the outfit concerned, although fully equiped with WeChat/Alipay/Samsung Pay/a couple of other services whose logs I do not recognize, could not use the scanner for the pay by cellphone option.
Personally, I think the pay by cellphone is the way to go for everything today.
I rarely use cash. I use cash to pay my Spanish tutor, because it’s under the table-- she has a green card now, but didn’t when we first started*. Now that she has a green card, she was actually in the process of opening a Spanish and English language center here. It’s a resource the city really needs. English speakers who want to learn Spanish need quality classes with having to pay university tuition, and Spanish immigrants need a place to take quality English classes as well as citizenship classes (which she doesn’t have yet, but is going to add).
I buy drinks from a vending machine at work once in a while, for cash, and that’s pretty much it. I haven’t used the vending machine at work since weeks before lockdown, and my tutor went for a two-week visit to see her mother in Colombia, and got stuck there, so I haven’t paid her with cash since February. The only money I’ve seen has been in my coin collection.
I never carry cash, because you can’t lose what you don’t have.
*She was a dentist in Colombia, but she isn’t licensed to practice in the US. However, she speaks excellent English, and worked her way through college and dental school tutoring English and Spanish, and has excellent teaching skills.
When things went south I withdrew 3k at the bank in twenties. I’ve been using cash for take out food, produce at the farm market, etc. I’ve been telling people to keep the change.
Before this all began I used cash quite a lot, but between not shopping as much and places now taking cards only, I would guess it’s been at least a month since I used folding money.
About 3 weeks ago. My friend who is higher risk gave me some money to pick up some groceries for her and I didn’t have time to deposit into the bank. I drenched all of the bills in Lysol and hung them to dry before taking them to the store.
But since then I’ve been trying to avoid using it. But the bills I still have have all been soaked in Lysol just in case.
I’ve never paid any other way but cash. Not sure I could get my government phone to do so. Soon enough we’ll have a cashless society as predicted in Revelation.