Maybe the paper has a slight edge, but neither have lasting value. I tell people to spend everything they can while it’s still worth anything at all. The value of the dollar could plunge any time or just more steeply than it has. Might as well enjoy it while you can.
Ditto. Once it’s gone from the bank account that money is spent, whether it’s still in my purse or not. It no longer counts as anything but extra spending money to me.
Not that I deliberately go out and buy buy buy, but if I’m tempted to get something and I know I shouldn’t, but I have a $20 in my purse, well …
Spending cash and using my debit card are equally real to me.
Credit cards on the other hand, have a certain unreality to them because they allow me to spend money I don’t have right now. So I avoid using them whenever possible.
You people have confused me. Is this about paper and plastic money, or paper money and debit cards? You should have said debit cards if that’s what this is a poll about. Plastic money has been around for a while now.
Most posters are in the US, and probably not familiar with plastic bills–I know they exist, but I’ve never seen one. “Plastic” in US parlance means credit/debug/gift cards. I think it’s pretty clear from the OP what she meant, though.
I’m in the USA and thought this was going to be about plastic money verses paper money and how they liked it.
I thought this was about paper bills vs. plastic bills as well. I thought Australian money felt fake, but the window in it was pretty neat.
Quoth NinetyWt:
Likewise. I know that money is all just a mass delusion, anyway, and I’m OK with that, since it works.
I’m a little more averse to using a card for small purchases like lunch, but that’s more of a convenience factor than a tangibility thing: When I use a card, I have to record it in my checkbook, and that’s not worth bothering with for a few bucks. On the other hand, I’m also averse to using cash for large amounts like rent, just because it seems risky to me to carry a thousand dollars in cash on my person.
You thought that even after you read the OP?
Edit: @Harm and muld
No, but my poll answer was the same (paper) either way.
Cash feels more real (because I mean, I can feel it, in my hands!) but it’s easier to spend (because it’s already out of my bank account, thus I can’t use it to pay bills or make online purchases, thus it’s effectively already spent in my mind). I get a lot less use out of it unless I’m using a vending machine or hailing a cab, so if i know I have it, I’m more likely to spend it when I can than I would with a debit card.
We use a credit card for everything, and I mean everything -
[ol]
[li]so we can track - I can tell you exactly how much we spend on anything[/li][li]points!!![/li][/ol]
But, I do always have to have some folding money in my wallet, just in case. I’ve been known to walk around with the same $25 sitting in there for two months.
So, for me, paper money has always been more “real”.
That was my first thought on seeing the thread title. :smack:
I can hardly remember paper paper money. Not having to worry so much about tearing or trips through the washing machine is nice though.
The AUD is more real at the moment, we’re above $1 USD! 
Okay, so the reason I ask is because I actually find cash easier to part with, and wanted to know if I was alone. Of course it’s all money, but the idea that people tend to think of money that’s in their hands more concretely, while swiping a debit card means numbers somewhere are shifting around doesn’t apply to me.
I think of the balance in my checking account as how much money I have, and often don’t even think to take cash into consideration. I go online or use my phone to check my balance, and deem that my total available funds, which makes it much easier for me to blow through cash. In practice, it doesn’t affect my spending habits in any significant way, as I rarely have cash on me. I theorize the reason I am this way, that is, I think of my available spending money as what’s in my checking, is because that usually is the case, since I don’t carry cash.
So now I’m all ass backwards, and paper money is fake money, and plastic money is real.
They’re both the same to me. My wife does the bills, so I really have no idea how much money I have in my checking account at any one time–I really couldn’t tell you within even like $5,000. And I don’t really need to watch how much I spend on day-to-day stuff. So, I guess because I don’t monitor how much I spend, it doesn’t matter to me how I spend it.
Well done. applauds
Pretty good for a snowmobile salesman.
Yeah, I never really got that “use cash all the time to spend less” strategy. If I take out cash, that’s the painful part right there, watching it get subtracted from my account balance. Once I’ve gotten over that pain, I can blow through that cash with impunity.
I can track my income easily if it’s in my account then going out of it, either by ATM or direct debits. Say, every month there’s this amount going in then, then this amount for rent, this amount for gas/electric, this for internet, etc.
But I had a debit card when I was 10, and I’m 35 now. For the past 5 years or so I’ve had to live with a mostly cash account and just haven’t adjusted to it. I doubt I ever will, because the world’s not set up for it. I’m used to it being ‘pay goes in, bills go out, what’s left is ATM money = fun time money!’ or at least not as essential as electricity and rent.
Cash is harder for me to spend because I can actually see my $100 (for example) getting smaller in my hands. First I had 5 20s, then only 3, then one, now I’m down to one 10.